When Wallpaper Attacks, It Can Kill the Sale

In today’s real estate market more and more home sellers are relying on home staging tips and advice to guide them in ways to best prepare their homes for selling. So last week, when I was hired to tour a seller’s property to give them my “Buyer’s Eye” advice, a monster of a problem reared its ugly head. The wallpaper in my client’s home was so extremely ugly I told them I just had to write a blog about it and use it as an example on how monsters like this will negatively affect a home’s sale.

So for the fun of it, and to drive home my point, I present to you (below) what I saw. So hideous was this wallpaper, I have to admit it almost looks like a cliché. However be wise, while not all wallpaper is as ugly this, it still is a problematic issue that sellers need to pay attention to. Fortunately, my clients were motivated and open to advice and willing to take it down. They know they had to present the most competitively appealing property as possible to sell in today’s market. But when it comes to wallpaper, not all sellers are as accepting of staging advice. I have found that the topic of wallpaper usually results in eye rolling, harrumphing, justification and/or avoidance with sellers. So if you are serious about selling your wallpapered home, you need to look it from a sellers view. Keep in mind, regardless of how “fantastic” you think your home’s wallpaper is, it is a HIGHLY personal expression of taste, so chances are potential buyers will NOT like it. Second, buyers want to buy their dream home ready for today, not yesterday. Wallpaper is trendy and needlessly ages a home.

But most importantly, what sellers need to know is this…. when buyers see wallpaper they don’t like, they see dollar signs. When it comes to spending their hard earned money to buy their dream, buyers will scrutinize and negatively react to your wallpapered home as, hopefully, you reacted to my extreme examples above.

So you need to know that any and all the resistance you have about removing wallpaper will be the EXACT same resistance a buyer will have about it too. Buyers know removing wallpaper is an arduous task that can be costly. Because this is the reality of buying a home with wallpaper, buyers know in this market they can and will move on to the next home that does not have that monster to battle.

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