Houses Are Dressing For Success Now?

I spent Saturday morning watching Sell This House and Flip This House on the Arts & Entertainment channel. Worse than the disappointment of discovering this is someone's idea of art or entertainment was the realization that marble and granite countertops are only a small part of the deceptive practice of dressing houses for success, or for the owners they hope to have. At least in cases where actual marble or granite is used instead of Formica colored to look like stone, the updates are real and not illusion.

 

Since these programs were presented in the tone of public service announcements, and rude attitudes were valued higher than personal tastes, feelings, and safety, now I understand better how out of touch I am with corporate reach into real estate. After viewing what are apparently acceptable levels of unreasonable expectation, demands for instant gratification, personal insults, ignorance, lack of imagination, poor character, theft by deception, and profit above all else, I was heartsick.

On Sell This House, a group of workers goes into houses that are on the market but have not sold, to "stage" makeovers. There must be a charge for their service--even though sellers and their friends are expected to help with labor--either passed on to buyers or covered by advertisers who promote ignorance, instant gratification, and poor character. Either way, it costs buyers and society.

First, the team "stages" an open house before making changes. Potential buyers wander through the house, wearing expressions of disgust and confusion while they criticize everything from structure to taste. None of them is smart enough to remember that they will bring their own furniture, decorations, dishes, and photographs if they buy this house. Someone must have told them these sellers have received permission to buy the last paint and hardware on earth, and the sellers plan to leave everything they own in the house. All they see when walking through these houses are themselves, stuck, forever living the horrendously pathetic lives of the sellers.

Of course, the staging team plays recordings of these insults for the sellers. Regardless of their attachments to the things they own or their ability to afford changes, the team must share the insults to justify cleansing their home of everything personal, intellectual, useful, and entertaining. (They threw one item out a second story window and shattered it.) Books, electronics, kitchen appliances, photographs, and keepsakes must be moved to storage where they belong. According to Oprah and current designers, houses must look like no one lives there and everything that existed before 2009 must be destroyed and replaced with a staged gadget. The staged replacements are worth little (prices are shown) but will give the illusion that, should the viewer decide to buy, they will have modern stuff in this house.

No one on either side seems to realize this is wasted crap since, instead of staying in the house that is now painted to match the crap, the cheap bed clothes, the curtains that are stapled to the wall, and the couch cushions carelessly made from more bargain basement sheets will go with the sellers, who will have to hope the crap survives the move and matches their new place, which will not suit their taste according to the looks of sorrow on some of their faces.

Finally, the team stages a second walk through in which the rude people are invited back to love the makeovers without showing signs of embarrassment for not having considered what the place could have looked like if they had painted walls, thumb-tacked old clothes over windows, and covered their own couches with a thousand gaudy pillows. As expected, one of the potential buyers wants this house at the new price because it's beautiful and uncluttered now. The staging team boasts that they have turned two days of labor and insults, and a couple hundred dollars, into thousands of dollars in profit. Never mind that the total square footage remains the same as before and they are paying thousands for the couple hundred dollars worth of crap that will mostly go with the sellers or in the trash. All dressed for success, this house looks bigger and like it belongs on Oprah so they feel bigger, or smarter, or more in the mood to buy.

Flip This House was a more appealing idea on the surface. If flipped by conscientious investors who care as much about society and others as they do about profit, it might salvage and restore failing neighborhoods. Sadly, this program featured some for whom it was all about profit. One guy had to see a counselor when it turned out he could not just paint over rat and roach feces but had to replace walls, cutting into what was still a more than $100,000 profit. Fortunately, I kept watching until they featured the guy who flipped a house for less than $100,000 profit, cared about safety, donated or recycled what he removed from the house, and installed energy saving appliances.

How is this going to work for the people whose salaries remain stagnant (that would be most Americans) while the cost of housing (this ultimately affects rental rates, as well) rises ten times faster? Illusions and ignorance are killing what's left of the American Dream.

I Don't Want Granite or Marble Countertops

A friend reported that the suffering economy had apparently not hindered the ability of everyone he has visited recently to update their kitchens.

"Let me guess," I interrupted. "Marble or granite countertops and stainless steel appliances?"

"Correct," he said. "How'd you know?"

"Those are the latest, keep-up, status symbols. You're nobody if you still have butcher block or black. Nobody, I tell you! Imagine what that makes me with white appliances and Formica." 

He confessed. His Formica countertops prove that he is a nobody with me.

In all my life, I can only remember seeing a couple of countertops destroyed beyond repair. Cutting boards or trivets sufficiently covered most of the mishaps I've seen. Maybe I'm out of touch, though. Are Formica and ceramic tiles on the growing list of things that will kill us if we don't replace them immediately? If so, I will swallow some of these words with a spoonful of sugar.

My mother owned three refrigerators in her life. She lived to be seventy-four. At fifty-seven, I've bought as many. Obviously, they aren't lasting like they used to but it's still hard to imagine that all of the non-stainless ones that have been replaced in the last few years actually bit the dust making those replacements necessary. I'm betting people are replacing perfectly useful counters and appliances because that's what people do these days. I'm also feeling very old saying these days.

My friend said he had priced marble and granite and decided the switch could wait until he is ready to sell his house. Then, of course, he will have to update the kitchen and bathroom to attract buyers.

"Huh?" For the sake of making this as accurate as possible, I will embarrass myself by typing that grunted response. "Why would you make those changes to a house you are going to leave?"

"Because that's what they tell you to do if you want to get the best price," he explained.

I might have told him that I think they always say stupid things. I'm certain I said, "But they are game players, the people who run up the cost of buying a home. And you are playing their game." I'm certain about that part because my accusing him of playing their game is what made him furious with me.

He explained how he could put a little money into updates and get more than a little back, which made my head want to explode. I was shocked to hear this from a friend who usually lashes out against Corporate America and materialism with more venom than even I use. I must be missing a lot these days (and getting older by the paragraph since I keep using these days).

"Why not give the buyers the opportunity to decide when they would prefer to make this investment?" I asked. "Let them choose the countertops and appliances they want when the time comes since they are going to have to pay for them. Updates aren't free, you know, just because the seller makes them."

He said something about wanting to get as much as he could for his house. I'll admit that I closed my ears because I didn't want to hear this from my friend.

"The buyer pays more because the seller wants to make more, and the bank or mortgage company takes their cut, then the real estate agent boosts his percentage, and the closing attorney gets a few cents . . . all because the Joneses went into debt to keep up, creating a domino affect in the neighborhood which in turn helped out the bank by loaning money to replace perfectly useful trappings (old lady word, totally appropriate, and a liberty claimed for my willingness to own up to my nonstop rant)," I argued.

If I hadn't been in such a fossilized tizzy at that point, I'm sure my friend, who is usually reasonable and patient with my rantings would have explained how the bank would use that extra money to create jobs, and the people in those jobs would be able to buy more expensive homes, and perhaps the next status symbol will be floor coverings and above ground gardening boxes since they already have kitchens built into their mortgages, thereby helping other industries, and eventually the economy will improve and everyone will be sitting on easy street all because of marble and granite countertops. I'm sure my hateful growling of the words foreclosure and rackets are what made him change the direction of our conversation.

"My house is an investment,"he explained. "I bought it to make as much money as I can. Why did you buy your houses?"

And there we had the difference. Whew. At least this made some sense of the disagreement. I bought homes to live in, not houses to invest in. The first one had a different ugly carpet in each room. Hideous would better describe the absolute, most disgusting outdated floor covering in that kitchen. The front sidewalk had been painted red, leading to a black and white porch, attached to a house with green trim, making me almost grateful for the overgrown hedges framing the front and side yards. Almost. I would never have chosen the paint color in a single room or the sidewalk of that house, or the foil wallpaper that clashed with the hideous kitchen carpet. And I will never understand why the previous owner nailed plastic fruit to the doorframes. 

But I will appreciate the real estate agent who did not advise the previous owner to spend money on updates that would have made this place move-in ready. I'm positive - absolutely, positively, without a single doubt positive - she would not have chosen what I wanted. Also, at age twenty-four, I barely qualified for the mortgage as it was, so I probably wouldn't have been able to buy this house with those costs added to the price.

I cleaned the ugly carpets and walls, collected old furniture from garages and basements of friends and family, and moved in with big dreams. I would save a little from each paycheck and eventually paint and replace carpets. Maybe, a few raises and bonuses down the road, I'd buy furniture, a piece or a room at a time. Meanwhile, I had my own home. When I looked at that house, I saw what I knew it would be, not the fixer-upper it was.

I replaced everything in that house while I was there. Seriously, every wall, the wiring, floor coverings, the furnace and air-conditioning, light fixtures, electrical outlets and covers . . . At times, I lived with plywood floors and studs without drywall while I saved for what I wanted to cover them. That way, the interest that might have gone to the bank became my profit. When I left, I sold my home to the first potential buyer, making a little profit which I then used as a down payment on another house that I saw as the home it could be instead of the mess it was.

And this concludes my story about one of the ways I think the housing market went to Walmart in a hand basket. Next time, I plan to talk about investment buyers and how I hope their homes are as overpriced, drafty, leaky, and miserable as the ones they rent.

Some granite counter tops may emit radon.