Oh...What to wear! Bungalow or...?

Shopping for the perfect house is a whole lot like shopping for that perfect wardrobe piece. Men…stay with me here. Consider me your personal shopper and friend….here’s where I am going with this.

I consider myself, my buyers’ personal shopping assistant. The first time we go out together, I try to see through your eyes. I ask alot of questions(and got a very funny look yesterday when I started my probing) I attempt to get a really good picture of what kind of home you see yourself in.

Now…let’s suppose you went out with your best shopping mate…you glide out of the change room to show off that new outfit you really need…and your friend blurts out…”Good grief! What were you thinking when you wiggled yourself into the little number!” You see…that’s just what I think sometimes, when my clients are looking at the wrong house for them. Maybe they don’t see what I see? Maybe I see the strip mall right behind the house…maybe I see questionable neighbourhood…the windows that a need replacing…the fact that there are 2 bedrooms when you wanted 4!  It’s not a good fit!.

Some fashion fauxs are not as bad as others…sometimes the fit can be altered and it’s an easy fix. Maybe you look better in red than blue. Maybe the walls need a different color. That’s an easy fix. Maybe you need to accessorize! Curb appeal can be remedied as well. Nothing like a nice colorful scarf and earrings…or a great tie...or a hydrangea! Black mulch and some flowers will perk up those sallow looks. 

The tough one is the size 12 that clearly will not go onto a size 4! For example…”No Carol, I don’t want to do any updating…I’m not handy. I must have a garage because I hate to dig my car out of the ice and snow.” We waltz into the home that needs all sorts of repair…but it was all prettied up to sell…it has no garage, pizza parlor is in the backyard, a faint smell of pepperoni wafts lightly through the air. They fall in love with the view. What do I do? Do I tell them they’ll split their seams as soon as they bend over? They have already pictured themselves in front of the lovely warm fireplace….(that too, will need all sorts of repair just to get the fire started and not burn the house down!) WE'LL TAKE IT! they scream with delight!. So….do I tell them it just doesn’t look right? The zipper just will not close? There's no fancy corset to hide the unsightly bulges!.

Actually… I will tell them…and then... they will do what they like.

After all…you’d tell that to a good friend wouldn’t you?