A few years ago, Lyn and I had a listing appointment with some Swiss homeowners. They had a relatively large home here in Ciudad Quesada. They’d proudly shown us around pointing out the many features, then took us through to the master bedroom. My honest first impression was, “How on earth can anyone ask us to price their home with so much mould on the walls!” Lyn could see the look of horror on my face and knew exactly what I was thinking, when she turned to me and said, “It’s not mould! It’s wallpaper!” As I was trying to hide my look of complete relief, without warning we were made to “take cover”, as the owner proceeded to shake the duvet on the bed… dog bones, chews and toys were being flung at us…. No one told me we needed to wear helmets! Ha! ha! I couldn’t stop thinking “now I knew why whenever I’d watched property programmes, they wore hard hats!” Ha! ha!
On another occasion, we were called out to list a property with Spanish homeowners. They had a three bedroom detached villa with pool in Ciudad Quesada. “They seemed pretty normal when they came in our office to make the appointment” said I to Lyn. Boy was I mistaken…. I really think this was the worst house I’ve ever seen in my entire 26 year Estate Agent career. I knew this was a disaster from the start after seeing the state of the settee on the terrace… Scratched to ribbons. Then the homeowner opens the front door. Horror! Shock! Really?! These words can only describe the immediate emotions running through our heads at what we were looking at. The only way I can describe it is from the floor to about a third of the way up the walls… let’s just call it “children’s graffiti”. Every colour in the rainbow… SCRIBBLE…. All over every wall in every room of the house! Then into the kitchen… try if you can to imagine a room full of flies… everywhere! Then he takes us to the bathroom… the bathtub was full of planks of wood. Where does this family wash? Then into the Bedroom… every door, whether it was the wardrobes or entry doors, were scratched to smithereens by man’s best friend. At this point, we’d seen enough and had to be totally honest with him and tell him that this was not ready to be listed for sale and that we couldn’t possibly offer it to our buyers. He, as you can assume, was not very happy and showed us immediately out. This was actually a relief because at least now, we could breathe in some fresh air!
So you see…. Presenting your home in the best possible way, even to the Estate Agent is worth making an effort. You wouldn’t try to sell a car and not wash it! So why present your house not looking its best too?