Sherry S.

That's completely ridiculous. Your parents don't carry the burden of the entire neighborhood's housing values. Your parents probably are anxious to get on with their lives and get this house sold and behind them. They should lower until they start getting showings. - Sun Aug 3 2008, 11:27

I'm not a realtor, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night! Actually, I did read "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Staging Your House for Sell" and I think you should read it as well.

I think the facade of the house is very stately, but the interior is very "frilly" right now which is dating it terribly. It's also in a state where it's only going to primarily appeal to buyers in love with cutesy "country stuff."

Here are the things I would do:
* Get into the mindset that you're no longer decorating for you, you're decorating/de-decorating for your buyer. You don't know your buyer, therefore you should be thinking as wide-appealing as possible. You can enjoy every bit of your country/frilly stuff in your next house, but 95% of buyers cannot visualize your home in a different "style" than it currently exists, so help them out a bit.
* #1 on your agenda should be removing the wallpaper. Small prints on wallpaper make rooms look smaller and you have all sorts of small prints going on. For every buyer you have walking through there that likes that wallpaper, there are 9 others walking in and saying "well, the first thing we'd have to do is get rid of this wallpaper." They're immediately associating your house with sweat and labor (and will expect a lower price for their precious sweat). Once you have painted the rooms a nice neutral color (like your master bedroom), put only a few carefully selected pieces of art on the wall.
* Don't have anything on the walls that you bought from Home Interiors in the 80s. Some of the best buyers in this market are first time homebuyers who are in their 20s-30s since they are not going to have a place they're waiting to sell. The Home Interiors stuff reminds us of grandma's house and we recognize every piece of it.
* Take the valances down in the kitchen. Those frilly things are blocking good light ($$). You have a cute amish looking table/chairs and cabinets which are probably really solid and charming, don't cheapen them with the frilly valances.
* Take down the valance above the french doors.
* The shades in your master bedroom should have been up during the photo.
* Are the two lamps in the master bedroom on a lamp switch? Your ceiling fan doesn't have a light kit. I hope the lamps are on a switch to easily illuminate the room during a tour.
* The rug in your master bedroom is covering up your beautiful floors! Pack it up!
* I would also remove the little white cart in the dining room. It doesn't seem to be serving a purpose other than being a display area for more "doo-dads". Removing extra furniture also makes rooms seem larger.
* I seem to be making out some kind of garland of some sort in the dining room on that white shelf. Take that down.
* Is your bed comforter reversible? If so, flip it to the solid side.
* Remove the stuffed raggedy-ann looking doll in the red room.
* Put away the "roll" pillow on the red sofa. There really isn't anywhere to sit on that sofa because of all the pillows. Buyers like to have a seat just as much as anyone else.
* I can't see any bathroom pics on realtor.com, but I automatically visualize them as having wallpaper, a towel rack of pink towels with embroidered ducks on them, a wooden toilet paper cabinet, and a basket of seashell-shaped soaps on the back of the toilet based on what I can actually see of the house. De-country your bathrooms if you haven't already.
* I see lots of either real or fake flowers. If you're changing out fresh flowers, great, but if they're tattered/faded fake flowers, consider just displaying the vases if they're ceramic. I would just remove them completely if they're plastic vases.

That's probably a good start. Best of luck! - Sun Aug 3 2008, 10:45

There are actually laminates now that look like granite. If I was keeping my house, I'd install them. See link below. - Fri Aug 1 2008, 14:03

The street is really just like any other "negative" that you can't do much about (i.e. crummy floor plan, awkward lot, etc), you may have to price it to the point where it's such a great value that someone can "live with it." - Wed Jul 30 2008, 20:37

I'm no realtor, but I know that realtors are going to respond to this question with "have your realtor run a CMA to show you the recently sold/pending comps." Hehe. - Mon Jul 28 2008, 14:55