The Old Woman is Looking for a Shoe

I’ve been thinking. Well, thinking and looking if you want to know the truth. Now if we are gonna move, we need to find something to move into. Sorry, a double-wide doesn’t do it for me. I want a home with a foundation and a roof. That’s the bare minimum.

I’ve been looking at a ton of bad MLS real estate listing photos lately and in the spirit of helpful, smart-ass advice, I offer up the following to the agents putting them on the Internet:

First off, don’t photograph your seller’s house with brush piled up from a major ice storm in front of it. I don’t care if you have to haul it away yourself. This looks bad.

Get a decent digital camera—they are pretty cheap these days––and stage the shots. Bad house photos are a big turnoff especially for this designer. Turn on the lights and make sure the sellers have already decluttered the house. If they haven’t, it’s going to hurt them. Put up lots of photos––as many as you can––but not ones of stuff the sellers are taking with them like the waterbed. Please don’t include three exterior shots and nothing of the inside. You want to get potential buyers to consider the property, not rule it out. Shots of the kitchen, bathroom, entry, and backyard are great. Avoid dark and depressing interior shots. Likewise, look at what’s outside of a window shot. I can’t think being this close to an industrial plant is good. Lose the fuzzy, out of focus shots that look like the camera lens has been coated with Vaseline for a Playmate photo shoot. Do you actually go to the Web site to see how the photos look?

Take some effort in writing the description. Throw in words like charming and classic for older homes. But please don’t call the security system a burglar alarm. Hello. Is that not a big red flag? You may love that bathroom covered with monkeys-in-palms wallpaper, but do you have to brag about it? I don’t like monkeys any more than Bill likes clowns.

And one final bit of advice: awesome is rarely awesome.

Will He Come Today?

Is this a provocative title? Are you at all curious? Am I talking about Jesus or . . .? Actually I’m talking about a repairman who told me he was coming on Monday to do a little work on the house. Then, when I called yesterday, he said, “I had another job to finish and I’m coming in the morning.”

I think any unemployed remotely handy man or woman should consider going into the handyman business. I called one out of the phonebook this week to see if he could switch out a kitchen faucet. Sure, he could do it, but here’s the catch: I would have to commit to a four-hour minimum for $265 and oh, by the way, the wait time would be six weeks. The plumber is coming on Tuesday. Don’t ask me how much, but at least the one I scheduled gave me a price. One company said, “There’s a $65 charge to come out and then we’ll tell you how much it is.” I didn’t just fall off of the turnip truck yesterday.

Many people give up and learn how to do the work themselves. Well, since I’m soon to put this old house on the market, I don’t have time to begin a crash course on home repair--I'm in the middle of a paint marathon this week. And heck, I don’t even have time to be checking my email or writing this; but you see, I’m waiting for a man to come.