Old Lady's Old Friend Gives Advice

I have a friend, Anne, who is very knowledgeable about real estate and decorating. She has bought and sold a number of houses on her own account, and she even has a real estate license. She's a nurse, and she's never had a job as a realtor, but she took the RE courses for research. Anyway, she's someone I have always called with questions about decor, furniture, DIY, etc.

I called Anne a few months ago, telling her about my Five Year Plan, and asking what I should be doing now to get ready to sell. "Go to open houses," she said, "As many as you can, and see what sells." (She also said, "Oh, and spend the money to have your house staged. I wish I had staged my mother's house, I know it would have sold much faster than it did. And paint your cabinets.")

I did go to quite a few open houses over the past couple of months, and I felt quite humbled. All the houses had new appliances, many had new cabinets, new countertops, even new toilets. Everything looked so new. New, new, new. And my house looks so old. Old, old, old.

Now I can't afford to remodel my kitchen and bathrooms, but at least I can try to make them look newer. Hence the cabinet painting, grout renewing, countertop shining, and other projects on my Task List.

But a bonus I wasn't expecting from the open house visiting was the ability to meet and talk to local real estate agents. Most of the open houses didn't have enormous traffic; I could talk to some agents for as long as 10 minutes before another person walked in. They would tell me what sells (cleanliness, newness, no clutter); many offered to come over to my house to check it out and tell me what I might do.

I took them up on the offers. After old renter moved out, while I still had the empty room and bath to show, I asked three over. The consensus was approval of my list, but adding, buy new stainless steel appliances. Another said I should replace my bedroom carpet. Most said, don't spend a lot of money changing or remodeling, just get everything as clean and shiny as can be, and consider staging.

Meanwhile, Anne decided she wants to sell her house, too, around the same time I'd be selling mine. She's not thinking of moving to another city or state, she just wants to downsize. She and her husband have four boys, but they're all grown and on their own now, and their home is too big for just the two of them. Plus they would like to squeeze some extra cash out of the move.

So Anne called her own real estate friend and had her come over. Her friend actually wanted her to do a bit more changing (something about a bathroom wall), but she added that trim (wall, window, door trim) should be painted glossy white. I've only ever painted semi-gloss; glossy seems so extreme to me. But Anne's RE friend said, "People want shiny things."

I'm going to have to ponder on that as I prepare to paint the living room.