On The Market

Selling a home is never easy but it seems that my husband and I have made the difficult sale an art form. The one exception to this was the time we sold our house to my mom and the transaction was akin to my mom asking what it was being listed for and then saying she would pay that price.  A once in a lifetime dream come true.  Our house went on the market two weeks ago and, believe me, I already know that this sale is not going to come as easily as the one I made with my mom. Given our outright lack of luck for the past three and a half years, it really should not have surprised me when putting our house on the market single-handedly shut down the sales of homes in our area.  Prior to our joining the 'for sale' group, houses were selling like hotcakes in our development for listing price and above.  We shut that down the day the hole was dug for our sign.  I am a realtor.com hound even when we are not selling, so I am keenly aware of market trends and priced my house below the recently 'sold' competition for a quick sale. Ha!

I spoke with my realtor last night looking for some insight as to why we are stalled and not showing and I must admit her answer surprised and annoyed me.  She said that she has spoken to a couple of the realtors who have showed my house and they concur that it is really more of a 'theme-house' (like Disney World or Wisconsin Dells???) because of all the inlaid hardwood floors and lack of carpet.  Wait a minute! Did she mean to tell me that people would prefer to live on someone else's old carpet instead of beautiful hardwood floors?  Has no one thought to mention that a potential buyer could put area rugs over the wood floors?  Have anyone ever seen an episode of House Hunters on HGTV where the potential buyers are looking for carpet instead of hardwood?  This is a bitter pill to swallow and I must say that for me it begs the question whether realtors simply show a house or actually try to sell a house because I find it hard to believe that a potential buyer would not even come to see my home because of a lack of carpet.

I suppose I am even crankier about this because all the homes I am looking at are filled with exactly what I detest...the dreaded wall-to-wall carpet.  The last thing I want to be doing is replacing carpet, but it seems it is the first thing that will need to be on my list when we eventually move.  My realtor suggested that perhaps our buyer will need to be someone who is being transferred to our area, someone who is not 'offended' by hardwoods.  So, the way I am interpreting her suggestion is that we need someone from out of town (state?) with an open-mind when it comes to flooring options and who is not over-sensitive nor 'offended' by beautiful inlaid wood floors.  What are the odds?