maddening comments by potential buyers!

[nONIE]

These are a few we have heard since we put our house on the market:

My great grandmother fell down a set of stairs that were this steep and broke her neck!

3 acres will not be enough land to walk my dog around while saying the rosary!

Im concerned that ATV's will be wizzing down these wooded trails, I just couldnt stand that!

The barn floor is uneven, would you reduce the price so we can have the barn torn down?

not enough closet space

I dont like the utility room on the main floor, I prefer that it was in the basement, in case of flooding.

You may add to these if you wish!::ohdear:

[Shirleevee]

Fear NOT Nonie.......the perfect people will find your home PERFECT for them.

[nONIE]

Thanks shirl, actually I found some of these very humorous, got to keep a sense of humor thru all this right?

[KathieI]

Nonie, I love when they are critical of your furniture design, like "this looks so drab" or "gaudy", what does that have to do with the house?

[Boomer]

Oh Nonie, aren't people just lovely sometimes.

I have a few antiques. I don't live in a museum or anything like that, but I have a few pieces here and there. (an oak table with six leaves, a couple of armoires, a few more things.)

Anyway, one time somebody came to my house, saw my antiques, and said, "Why do you want all this old furniture around? You just never know whooooo it might have belonged to."

Classy comment huh.

(You know I have heard that Billy Bob Thorton has a fear of antique furniture. Phobic maybe. So I am going to be sure to keep my antiques because I sure do not want Billy Bob Thorton to come to my house.)

Boomer

[chuckinca]

Bank owned house behind us has a SOLD sign on it after just two weeks on the market!


We are trying to get ours ready to sell by mid July - maybe some pent up demand, not many houses around here with For Sale signs.


.

[nONIE]

Chuck,

Its the total opposite in this area. Every other house has a For Sale sign in the front lawn. Cant imagine why people are so anxious to get out of N.Y. LOL

Boomer, off topic a bit but, I have had tons of antiques in my house over the years and often wondered about bringing in a spirit with them. Never had a problem except I had this antique doll sitting in my living room. I never knew she had teeth!!! One dayI was looking at her and her teeth fell down from somewhere in her head and dropped into a position that looked like she had 2 fangs. Im not superstitious but that sure scared the bajeebers out of me. I gave her to a friend as a gift who admired her and she couldnt stop talking about what a wonderful friend I was. :laugh:

[duffysmom]

My all time favorite "The sound of the ocean is so loud, can you talk on the telephone".:oops:

[handieman]

Nonie, the day I decided to remain in FL and not return to New York was the best move I could make. Even though we still own in NYS (home is now for sale), I will never live again up North. I have become addicted to The Villages and all the great freinds I have made. It's now our turn to hear all the excuses not to buy our home, The realtor was the first one to find fault and I fired her on the spot
Handie

[another Linda]

Sigh! The thought of selling our house where we have lived for over 30 years seems like more than I can tackle. I know people will come in and make horrible comments because they always do -- guess potential buyers don't want to appear too anxious. And the thought of clearing out closets and attics and the basement is overwhelming. So for now we keep working (don't ask why I'm on TOTV at this time of day!)

[Number 6]

Where Upstate? We moved here from Elmira just a year ago. Best move we ever made. I am from Buffalo and the wife from Rochester.
Of course, our house sold in two weeks. Who would have guessed?

[swrinfla]

another:

I sympathize. Lived in my old house 42 years. Before actually putting it on the market, I, of course, had several agents in to see what they thought.

Since I hadn't done much work in the previous couple/three years, mostly because my wife was dying/did die, I wasn't surprised when one agent gave me a list of things that needed doing. I guesstimated close to $50,000.

Next agent suggested trying to sell "as is." Guess who got the account?

The hardest part was, indeed, sorting what to keep, what not to keep. After long consideration, I finally took the few things I needed/wanted from the basement, then hired someone to just take everything else. If it was saleable, he was entitled to sell it. If it wasn't, he had to find the best way to get rid of it.

After the initial shock of simply throwing away years and years of accumulated junk which I absolutely knew would never pitch, I realized how liberatling my decision was!

Bottom line: bite the bullet, say goodbye and pitch 99.6% of it!

:pepper2:

:beer3:

SWR

[katezbox]

Hi Nonie,

There is a sub-category of people out there who want something for nothing. Now most of us may believe in the adage "the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary" but there are others always looking to get something cheap, or free or discounted - usually for no good reason.

We had feedback from one guy that we needed to have room upstairs for a darkroom. None of the bedrooms would do because they had "GASP!!!!" windows.

Hang in there. Good things will happen.

[In awe of TV]

In selling my home in CT - the comment that got me was "I really love the house, but I don't think I could live with that red bathroom".

Ummm, I think a gallon of paint would solve that problem!

But they must've forced themselves to overlook it because they bought it.

I had furniture from my divorce that I did NOT want to take on my move to GA - I called the Salvation Army - they arrived with their truck and away everything went. I provided a generous donation to the needy and a great deduction for me at the same time.

There's nothing like starting fresh and very light with a relocation - That's the way to go IMHO.

:beer3:

[Peggy D]

Oh Nonie,

We just lived through this nightmare!! We've heard everything from not liking the shelf paper to the boat dock is too far (we are aprox 100 ft from it!)

I think HDTV home buying /selling shows add to this. Some of the things these buyers are concerned with are crazy.

The best one I heard for selling your home was to offer champagne and strawberries at your next Open House--NOT!!!

[texasfal]

When we sold our house the last couple that looked at the house spoke Spanish. They did not know that I also speak Spanish and the wife kept criticizing the house and calling us names. The husband loved the house. Finally I had had enough and answered a question in Spanish. The wife turned beet red and the husband apologized. They made an offer that day and we closed 4 days later. Best move we ever made.

[sschuler1]

Nonie, We had many people come out and look and then comment that they couldn't put a pole barn on the property. Well, if they had read the listing they would have seen that our property is heavily wooded! Or the comments that the house is too small. Duh, the square footage is on the listing! I think those are just comments to let the realtor know they aren't interested, but don't want to just admit that they don't like the house.

[kittylecroix]

Luckily yesterday we found out our house is "sold". We are fortunate because we just listed it May 1st. Before that we showed it on our own twice. The first couple raved about it and said they were going to the bank the next day to see what they could do. Never heard another word from them. The next guy made almost no comments during the tour, and never heard from him. The realtors we interviewed were up to a 100K apart in what we should ask. They all said you have to really go through hoops to justify a price to a bank these days, and indicated that THEY would have to do that if someone came in with an offer. Anyway, we lucked out because the people buying our house don't need much financing so there was no question regarding the appraisal. One Realtor who told us to price it 100K less than the one we went with had come very highly recommended to us. When we heard her recommendation, we said if that was the case, we wouldn't sell it. The Realtor we picked worked very hard showing it, having open houses, etc. Funny comments she relayed to us were "I can't see the sunset from this side of the lake" and one couple who spent over an hour and were very interested decided it wasn't a big enough eating area for their family of 5 children and grandchildren. We have had probably 30 people at a time here, probably more. Anyway, don't take comments too seriously. Some people are negative hoping to make you lose confidence in your asking price. " All it takes is one" and your house will sell.
One more comment. We loved our house here, but love TV also. We are really "Voting with our feet" to get the hell out of NY State. Those of you from here (Nonie, Linda, Handieman)How about our dysfunctional State Legislature's latest fiasco?!

[another Linda]

... Those of you from here (Nonie, Linda, Handieman)How about our dysfunctional State Legislature's latest fiasco?!

Ah, yes. totally unreal!

[SteveFromNY]

We were selling a 3 story house with a basement. It was VERY obvious from the outside it was a 3 story house.

After looking at it they decided against it as it had too many stairs! Were they expecting an elevator?

[interested]

We have a beautiful creek running through our property that our kids loved growing up with the frogs and polly wogs. I thought it was a great asset. Over half the buyers cited the creek as a negative and scary if they had kids ( about one inch deep). We lucked out and a couple with no children bought our very large 5 bedroom house (why? - I don't care!) and last week we bought in the village of Amelia. Hang in there - it just takes the right one but as has been said, you have to give in on the price.