On the Market Again

First of all, my better half thinks I should have been more accurate in my earlier description of landing on hard concrete floor, so here goes - the floor I landed on when I fell off the ladder was not BARE concrete as I dramatically insinuated (poetic license), it was a 6mm (0.23") laminate flooring over concrete!

We made a financial deal with our Chelmsford tenants to wrangle them out of our house and into a rental, rather than have them linger indefinitely - we would refund their entire damage deposit provided they left the house completely empty as our only stipulation. We agreed we would not inspect or nitpick about things not working or being damaged etc, as would normally happen after vacating. They took it with open arms, so we spent the week after they'd left scrubbing the house. We cleaned showers (had it EVER been cleaned since we left??), floors, windows (grubby doesn't come close), walls, garages, and yard, painted 4.5 rooms, as well as cabinets, handrails, range hood, countertops, etc etc. We picnicked in our yard when we took lunch breaks, and we slept over at Linus and Rachael's, making it much easier on us. 

The house has now been staged with pseudo-decor that looks artificial and sterile, but trendy, so we're letting the experts guide us here. It certainly doesn't look homey, just contrived and staged, but I guess that's the market they're appealing to?

We worked like dogs all week, and are feeling proud of our efforts, so why can't someone just buy it?

Weirdly, the photographer arrived a day earlier than scheduled (and before we arrived for our day of work), and began photographing the house in the shambles it was in, prior to our cleanup and staging being complete. There were paint rollers and brushes in a basin in the kitchen sink, an unfinished countertop, tarps, ladders and paint cans across the floor, no shower curtain, bedroom closets standing open, etc, etc. Surely, surely the photographer must have realized that things weren't ready - surely they could have called their office, or our realtor to check what was going on? But no, they took photos anyway, and then removed 'clutter' digitally or staged rooms digitally. We were fuming, and got them to come back and redo it in its finished state - it's not a cheap service!

I went ahead and painted the handrails black as advised - this way grubby hand marks don't show. It stands out so much better.

We've reduced the price and I'm impatiently wondering why there are no bids, even no offers below our asking price - just ... crickets. Hurry and snap up this gem, please!

(Neighbor update: she sent me a text saying she wanted to check if someone had moved into our house since her partner saw "a woman with a blonde ponytail bringing chairs in or out. So I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't someone in the house who shouldn't be." That person was our stager and she was publicly parked on the road, in front of the house, obviously carrying furniture INTO the house for all to see - she was clearly NOT burglarizing. Plus, we have a lock box on the front door, our car was parked in the driveway, and the dumpster on the driveway was gone. This false concern for our property was likely pure nosiness; she just wanted to find out the status of our property.)

Here's how our house is presenting now: Zillow