Last thought before bed

[unixronin]

And it's more than half rhetorical, inspired by a mention on a mailing list of selling your house yourself, and advice on preparing to do so.  Right there on the list of to-do's, sure enough, was"de-personalization".

I've always wondered about that.

Why is it that, when endeavoring to convince some person that your house is a place they want to live in, the first thing a realtor will advise you to do is to remove all personal touches and turn the house into a bland, sterile, cookie-cutter place that you wouldn't want to live in?

Comments

[anda.livejournal.com]

Because what they like is probably not what you like, and lots of folks have so much personalization in their houses that buyers can't imagine themselves living there because everything in it screams "this is the seller's house!"

At least, that's my understanding.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think that's the explanation usually given, yes. Most people I've actually talked to about it think it's creepy. You walk into a house that you know six people live in, and it seems like some kind of Stepford house that has no-one and nothing actually alive in it.