Notes To Prospective Buyers

[poliphilo]

Notes To Prospective Buyers

It is a big, old house with original features.
Two rooms are painted purple and one is green,
("Satyr green" to be precise)
The kitchen is orange.
Try to imagine it beige throughout.

In the front room there are rabbits-
The beloved pets- 
(They have eaten the wallpaper- ain’t that cute?)
Try to imagine the room without them.

In the back room there are books (several thousand)
Because books do furnish a room.
And DVDs because they furnish it as well.
Why don’t you look at the fireplace instead.
(It’s marble)

In the hallway and up the stairs
Are amateur paintings on Wiccan themes,
Featuring women with challenging eyes.
Try to imagine the space without them.

There are two people dogging your steps.
They say the kitchen is a Moben and two years old.
They say the leak has been fixed (but do you believe them?)
They both want ever so much to be liked.

Try to imagine the world without them.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I'll take it (although I will change the color of the kitchen to a French provincial blue and white, I will keep the purple and green rooms). You may have the books and DVDs, since I come equipped with a full room's worth myself. What's a Moben kitchen anyway?

Any self respecting realtor would tell you...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

To get those too people who care so much OUT of their while prospective buyers look. They care too much and make outsiders very uncomfortable.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Moben is a maker of kitchens. Top of the range, I'm told.

Re: Any self respecting realtor would tell you...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

You got advice to get out of the house, and that's good.

As for the rest: would you really want your house to go to someone who could hardly wait to paint the place beige? Eventually someone will come along and be happy to buy the house at a reasonable price, keep some of your changes, and change others.

(Spoken as someone who absolutely refused to paint or move anything in the last house she sold and who still is living happily with the attar-of-roses paint in the living room of the house she bought ten years ago.)

[jenny_evergreen]

That last bit breaks my heart...maybe the house, but not the world!

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I love this.

[silversmoke.livejournal.com]

Between your entries and Jackie's, I've found myself wanting to teach classes on How To Behave When Buying A House. Certainly it's the buyer's money, and they should get the house they want -- but aren't people raised to be charming and polite anymore?

Even if I thought your home was atrocious (which I don't) and wouldn't buy it for two pennies (which I certainly would) and hated bunnies (which is, in fact, the exacrt opposite of true), I'd still find things to compliment about it. I was taught to be kind AND honest, instead of turning up my nose like a spoiled child when things don't strike my fancy. Just because something isn't for me doesn't mean it's rubbish.

That said, it's still a good idea for you to scoot out of there while people are looking.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's this show we sometimes watch called House Doctor where this yappy woman comes along and blands out people's houses to make them more saleable. I hate it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Selling the house makes me think of the process of dying. I know it's a bit melodramatic, but there are parallels.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I tend to turn to verse when I'm feeling stressed.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

It's the fist piece of verse I've written in ages.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I wasn't prepared for just how painful a process it would be to try to sell the house.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The viewers haven't been too bad. Mind you, since most of them have been Urdu speakers, I haven't known what they were saying to one another most of the time.

But I think the process would hurt even if everyone was faultlessly polite.

[jenny_evergreen]

*nod* I understand. It's a great poem. :)

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I'm up here in Pennsylvania, 536 miles from my house, and just got a call that the home inspectors are seeing it on Wednesday.

I've gone from feeling excited and hopeful to being scared to pieces that they'll find a deal-breaking, expensive problem...

This process is exhausting.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It is exhausting. I'm trying to pretend it isn't really happening, but I'm not doing very well.

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

Funny how you have to sell the house and not how you've interpreted it, isn't it?

Thanks. That expressed the feeling well.

Reminds me of the rental house we had looked at one time where the previous tenant had painted each room a different bright colour: pink, light blue, brilliant yellow. The owner was busily painting over everything in eggshell.

It was such a waste. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

One is supposed- according to the experts- to remove all traces of personality from a house when one is selling it.

I refuse. I'll tidy it up a bit and reduce the clutter, but I'm not turning it into an anodyne show home.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

yeah- that's a pretty moving poem dad.

moving on. leaving things behind. that's hard.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

It is hard; I'm not at all sure I really want to do it.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I found myself thinking about this poem yesterday, while I was doing something completely different: which is a good sign, isn't it?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A very good sign....

I guess every poet's dream is to write a poem that "sticks"- that gets into people's heads and then stays there.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

That's kind of a sad last line.

Having sold our last house nine months ago (though we didn't move into the current one for two and a half months) I remember all this stuff, showing people around, and hoping they'd imagine all our personalities away. It's a weird feeling having people to view.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hated the experience. So much so we took the house of the market.