Our first house had a great 20x20 family room. The previous owners had converted the large garage to a family room. BUT…picture this…it had fake brown paneling walls. The carpet was an indoor outdoor plaid that was green, orange, brown and beige. My husband said it looked like a couch got spilled on the floor. There was a wet bar with a red sink, and the counter was a green marble Formica. Behind the bar was a wall with gold flecked mirrors. And there was a little roof over the bar that had cedar shingles on it. I can’t even begin to describe the lighting thing.
The kitchen was open to the dining room and living room. Walls were mint green. Mini blind in the kitchen was mauve. Counter tops were orange. Cabinets were dark mahogany color. Carpet in the LR/DR was a yellow shag. Wallpaper was that flocked stuff. Appliances were avocadogreen.
But the best part was the black and white wallpaper in the half bath…it was pictures of people toilets…there was a Mae West toilet, a Churchill toilet, a Napoleon toilet, a Monroe toilet. All over the walls.
After we looked at the house (which we really loved because of the space). DH asked me about my thoughts. I told him the flowered wallpaper in the main bath had to go. He claimed the wall paper was striped. It was that oilcloth wall paper…brown, orange,white, harvest gold. Well…we went for the preclosing inspection…and there was flowered wallpaper on three walls and strips on the large wall behind the sink…which was orange.
We redid a lot…almost everything. When we went to sell, we contacted the same agent. She was wowed by the improvement, and told us she almost barfed when we made the offer…but that clearly we had a vision she didn’t have!
LOL at the realtor barfing. Our realtor cringed at many things but tried to be neutral, but the inspector we used did not hold back her opinions while we followed her around (when buying this house, we seriously considered 4 properties, made 3 offers, and inspected 3 - backed out of one after the inspection and did not get to inspect one).
The house I grew up in was a decorating don’t along the lines of @thumper1’s description. I have no idea what my mom was thinking. We lived in rural NH and my aunt was an interior designer in Dallas so there’s that but my parents built a 2-story addition with a lower lever 2-car garage and a huge family room above. The bottom of the walls were a dark gray rough barn board that seriously gave me splinters as a child but the tops were upholstered (? ) with this huge navy blue, red and white floral fabric that was probably a Texas interpretation of Colonial. The sliding glass doors in the back and the picture window in the front had drapes of the same fabric so when everything was closed, you could hardly find the door to the kitchen.
My mom’s sewing room borrowed the upholstered wall idea but with pastel plaid fabric and drapes. Their master bathroom had black and white wallpaper with huge circles and blood red shag carpet. We sold it like that when I was a teenager. Even as a kid I knew it was awful but I survived to adulthood and my house looks nothing like that!
A good inspector is worth their weight in gold. I too was less concerned about the realtor’s thoughts, and much more about the inspection. (That said, our realtor this last time was super knowledgable but we’ve had others who just clearly wanted a sale).
We bought a century home this last time and had an inspector that specialized in that. While the report was lengthy, all the important stuff was sound and he told us this was one of the best preserved and maintained homes he had been through. We walked away from a couple of others with major foundation issues that would have taken us way over our budget.
My parents still live in the 1960s ranch they purchased brand new. While they have renovated several times over the years (kitchen, bathrooms, installed hardwood floors, and many other updates), there are a few things my mother refuses to change. One is the horribly outdated and ugly brown wood shingles that cover the interior walls in their family room. It was “in” back in the 70s but here we are 40+ years later and um…! Her reasoning when I got on her about it years ago was “the walls are indestructible and I don’t have to worry about them when the grandkids are here.” I was always like, “what do you think our kids are animals?” Not to mention, the grandkids only visit/visited a handful of times per year, and with the exception of a 10 y/o girl who visits maybe once a year, all of the rest are over the age of 16 now!
We joke that the minute they talk about selling, I will be sending over a handyman to rip it all down. On the upside, while much of their decor is not trendy, it is way better than most of the houses in their area, plus they have a nice addition and yard. When I look at the real estate listings in their area, I am often shocked that many of the houses have never been updated, or those that have been changed have really ugly renovations. Some of the homes still have the original kitchens and bathrooms (I grew up in a Levitt community where there were 5-6 different models so everything was the same in the houses). Despite the ugly family room, their house is in excellent condition so it would most likely easily sell even with the shingle walls. They have taken great care of it.
Our personal view with things is if they aren’t broken, they don’t need replacing. It matches our “green” view of the planet.
The house we live in was built in 1925. I’m sure many would be aghast, yet our boys survived to adulthood and are healthy/happy and we saved a lot of money over the years - money we tended to spend traveling (so there’s that not-so-green aspect I suppose).
We’re really hoping when we’re in the market for a retirement snowbird condo that we can find a less expensive place that hasn’t been modernized so we can save some money. Fortunately, H inspects houses/buildings so can determine what fixes are important vs not to avoid a Surfside issue.
My parents sold their home and ran into the new owners years later. They said the refrigerator had a problem and the repairman found a note inside. It was written by my father, saying “I was here in 1976 and if you’re back here, too, it’s time for a new refrigerator.”
We are planning to move next spring so we look at realtor.com and zillow avidly. Houses in our area are selling like crazy and for tens of thousands more than asking…for the most part. There is one that is just sitting, it’s in a nice location, decent size and floorplan. But - it’s terribly dated inside. It was built early to mid '90’s and still looks like that era.
My takeaway: even in a hot market a house needs some updating. This one could use some repainting (colors are very dated) and removal of '90’s style window treatments. A bit of staging would go a long way.
One thing I learned after we bought our first house: Don’t buy a house because you like the wallpaper, the fixtures, or the paint. We did that in 1987 and, by 1988, we wanted to change all of that stuff anyway. I now think back to all the wonderful houses that we saw but didn’t buy because the wallpaper was worn. I now know how beautiful those houses could have been – nicer than the house we wound up buying! And we wound up having that work done anyway.
For our second house, I could easily see beyond what was already there, thanks to my experience by then as well as HGTV shows. We got the house for a good price because it was so dated but we wound up making some huge changes, and I love this house now.
I’d love to do it again! but I’m not moving anywhere anytime soon.
Part of the problem that dated house might be sitting is that with the cost of building materials through the roof and contractors extremely busy (at least in my area of suburban MD), it’s going to take longer and cost more to do any major updates. Removing wallpaper, old window treatments and repainting is not that big of a deal, but if the kitchen and bathrooms are really dated, that might be the big dealbreaker on that house, even if priced lower than other houses in the area. Of course staging would still probably help it look better, but of there are a lot of other homes for sale, even if selling over asking with bidding wars, many homebuyers don’t want to deal with a fixer upper until supply chain issues get worked out.
Dated houses around here are selling quickly and above asking price. A friend got multiple offers within two days on a house that needs new windows, doors, siding (although this is OK enough), all floors, painting in every room, some new appliances, and a driveway that needs replacing. All circa 1995 and never updated. Her agent specifically told her to do nothing…she did offer a flooring and painting allowance.
Great neighborhood, and a new roof…but still. These buyers definitely need a vision and deep pockets.
There’s an open house this weekend at the place for sale near us. The owners listed it for 1.5mil 75 days or so ago and dropped the price to 1.3mil maybe a month ago. According to zillow before they listed it the price should have been around 640K.
I’m curious to see if anyone will come look. It’s a nice place with some land and a pond, etc, but we’re not in a HCOL area so it would need to be someone from one of those areas to jump at it I think - and they might need to pay cash if a bank appraiser won’t agree with the high value.
They have taken great care of it.
