House-Hunting Chronicles: Open Houses

I'm a huge fan of open houses. I love to peek inside of other people's homes.

Okay, that sounds weird. Let me try again.

Open houses offer insights and ideas for decorating, landscaping, layout and upgrading. I have learned a lot about different people's tastes and cemented my own. I have seen houses that I consider to be ug-ly that sold quickly and for much more money than I thought possible. I have seen how much, or how little, location, smells, colors, and square footage matter.

In the spirit of checking out all the potential cities along an 80 mile stretch of freeway, we have spent several Sundays moving in and out of homes.

One of the first was in a town I have been resistant to. I can't make a list of reasons why I don't like the town, but there is a vibe there that bothers me.

We arrived just when the house was scheduled to be open. As we stepped out of the car, we spotted a woman attempting to run across the street carrying a sandwich board. She was running behind schedule. We were willing to wait while she got set up, but she insisted that we follow her into the house. The routine, so far as I understand it, is that the owner vacates for the 2-4 hours that the home is open to prospective buyers. The agent was quite surprised that the owner was still in the house. And DIDNT leave.

It was a really, really nice house. The asking price was more than we want to spend, less than our house will likely sell for, but it was a nicer house than we currently live in. It had a lovely view of a large grass covered hill that was dotted with trees. Walking toward the view through the french doors off the living room, we were also treated to the presence of a horse on the other side of the fence. It seemed quite friendly, and was completely nonplused by the stinky cleaning rags hanging from the clothes line along the back patio. Did I mention that the inside of the house reeked of bleach? I had to work pretty hard to ignore the rags while the owner slowly took them down, chatting the whole time about the horse, the view and the fruit trees along the side fence. The agent also chatted nonstop.

Usually when a house is open and for sale, it is pretty carefully staged. Most of the furniture personal belongings are removed. The idea is to leave things a little sparse, which makes the home look larger (usually a good thing), and allow buyers to visualize their own belongings in the space. Apparently someone forgot to tell this homeowner, or she had so much stuff that she forgot to remove the extra couches and coffee tables from the bedrooms or the stacks of stuff in corners. She was also uncomfortable having strangers in her home because she insisted that the agent follow us from room to room. This led to an uncomfortable moment in the master bedroom when the agent was overly enthusiastic about the view of (the same) hill from the bedroom windows. Hand clasping, sighing and mmm-ing noises were involved.

It was clear that we really liked the house, so much so that the agent asked if we are working with anyone. That is a very common question. She wanted our agent's name. I told her. She wanted our agent's phone number. I pretended it wasn't programed into my phone. That's okay, she did a google search and called our agent while we were walking out the door ("I just want to share a few tidbits with her"). As soon as we were in the car, I texted my agent with a pre-emptive apology for the THREE phone messages this stranger agent would leave.

Nope, I still don't want to live in that town.