January 8, 2008

  • You're kidding. A separate dining room is a deficiency in today's housing market?

    That's what is claimed in this article, 8 reasons why your house is unsellable. 

    First is the list of flat-out undesirable elements, likely to make one's house a hard-sell:

    1. Small houses
    2. One bathroom
    3. No air-conditioning
    4. Fuse boxes
    5. Spiral staircases
    6. Basement laundry rooms
    7. Popcorn and stucco ceilings
    8. Basements with outside access only

    My house is sorta average-small.  Not unusually so, though. Not sure what a "popcorn" ceiling is, exactly, so don't know if that's what we've got or not.  No basement, so that bullet's neatly dodged.  No second floor, either, meaning no staircase, spiral or otherwise.  However, we don't make out so well once the "trends on the way-out" are factored in:

    1. McMansions
    2. Separate living and dining rooms
    3. Small master baths
    4. Standard-sized garage doors
    5. Football(field)-sized decks (the original omitted the "field" but it makes no sense otherwise; who wants a deck the size of a football?)

    We do have separate living and dining rooms.  And a small master bath. 

    Not that we've got plans to sell our house, but still, one likes to think if one wished to, one could. 

Comments (8)

  • Popcorn ceilings are bumpy.  They look like popcorn has been sprayed all over them.  Today's decorators despise them.

    I grew up in a small one-bath unairconditioned house with fuses.  I guess that explains a lot.

    I do think it's hard to win in home decorating.  Today everyone wants granite countertops and stainless appliances.  In a few years they'll probably head the list of undesirable elements.

  • I think it's all relative. Anyone who is in the market for a house anything like yours, Anne, is not expecting to find a modern house in the "great room" style where all the living space is glommed together. Sure, "great room houses" are more popular, but within the set of 30+ year old one story houses, I hardly think that houses with dining rooms are less desirable than ones without. And having a master bath at all is also probably a plus in that sector of the market.

    Really, there isn't a lot of logic to an article that treats the housing market as a monolith. For all we hear about yuppies whose "starter homes" are 3000 feet with granite countertops, and that is certainly a reality, there are millions of blue collar young couples who are just looking for something well-maintained that they can afford in a decent neighborhood. And, though I thought of this on my own, I recently heard an NPR commentator say the same thing -- many of those kind of people (the ones who managed to say out of the subprime/ARM trap) see the depressed housing market as an opportunity to own that they may previously have thought beyond their reach. Writing as though the housing market is a single undifferentiated entity where those two sorts of people (and everyone in between) are looking for the same thing, is just silly.

  • Here's an analogy: it's like saying you can't sell Priuses because large SUV's are more popular. Sure, maybe there are more large SUV's sold than Priuses, but there are tons of people who would never buy an SUV, and would love to buy a Prius, and Priuses are in fact selling pretty well. Just because more people want SUV's doesn't mean there isn't a good market for Priuses.

  • You go Jane. The other current trend/classic hit analogy that comes to mind is that salsa is the new #1 condiment. So they stop making ketchup?

    I have every confidence that we could sell our tiny, no master bath, house quite easily if we wanted to. It's in a great location, has a large lot, with lots of room for improvements of every sort, and we're improving what's here all the time. A young family such as we were when we bought it, or a retired couple who like the idea of country bu don't want to be too far out would love a place like this. But if you look at those lists, everything is wrong with it.

    I'm glad to see that McMansions are on their way out. Who wants to heat those things?

    me<><

  • Wha'? How do they do electrical without fuse boxes today??

  • Circuit boxes, E. Fuses are old news, and are riskier.

    me<><

  • I prefer a dining room separate from my living room.  Dining room/kitchen combo would be alright, as long as the kitchen space isn't smaller because of it.

  • I want a little,cozy house with lots of Elizabethan beams on a rather low ceiling. Wonder if beams will be the Next Big Fad.

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