Sellers should remove family photos before showing home to buyers
Q. We are getting ready to sell our home and have interviewed several real estate agents to choose the best one. One agent saw all the framed pictures of our family we have around the house and complimented us, saying that they make our house feel “very homey” and could help make it sell faster. Another agent saw them, and he abruptly said that those pictures “gotta go” before we start showing our house to the public, saying they would distract a buyer’s attention from our home’s amenities and prevent potential buyers from thinking about how they would decorate the home themselves. What do you think we should do? Should we leave the pictures where they are or pack them in boxes until we can place them in our next home?
A. I understand the advice that each of the two salespeople gave you. Though I’m sorry that one agent “abruptly” told you that your family pictures “gotta go” instead of putting his advice more gently, I would lean toward following his suggestion to remove most or all of your family pictures before you put your home up for sale.
Sure, the framed family photos or other mementos that you have placed about the house over the years show that there’s a lot of love in your home. Perhaps the pictures will make some prospective buyers feel that the emotional warmth you and your family enjoy now will somehow transfer to them after they move in.
More buyers, though, would like to view a home as a clean slate. They want to envision where they could put family photos or other cherished items of their own. And you certainly don’t want them spending time looking at your framed family pictures, trophies, displayed collectibles and the like while ignoring your home’s great condition, new built-in appliances or other special features.
While packing away your family photographs, also think about any art or posters that you may have hanging on the walls. For example, a painting of a nude that you think is beautiful or a poster in a kid’s room of a scary-looking rock band might distract prospective buyers or even send them fleeing for the front door.
REAL ESTATE TRIVIA
Copies of the ubiquitous “Dogs Playing Poker,” still found in millions of homes (and countless bars), are part of a series of humorous dog-themed paintings started by New York-born Cassius Coolidge in 1894. The first painting was auctioned for $658,000 in 2015, according to high-end auctioneering giant Sotheby’s.
Q. I have scraped and power-sanded the flaking paint on my garage so I can repaint it, but there are still some spots where the old paint just won’t come off. What can I do?
A. I called some professional house painters that I know, and all agreed that you shouldn’t worry about going forward with the job.
If you have already removed all of the flakes on the walls of the garage but some stains from the old paint remain, it means the old coating was exceptionally good and won’t interfere with the new paint that you are planning to use — assuming that you, too, are using a top-quality paint rather than a cut-rate brand with no guarantee about its lifespan.
Should you want to make the walls as perfectly smooth and even-colored as possible, “feather” the old stains outward before starting your repainting project.
Q. You often write about living trusts and the fact that trusts, unlike wills, do not have to go through the costly probate process. However, don’t some states offer faster and less-expensive “simplified probate” for certain types of estates?
A. Yes, nearly every state offers a form of simplified probate — sometimes called “summary probate” — for heirs to settle a deceased person’s estate. But the sad truth is that very few estates qualify.
Each state that offers summary probate sets its own rules for which estates are eligible for the expedited process and which ones are not. In many states, it’s available only to estates valued at $5,000 or less. Such low thresholds essentially limit the procedure to those who have little to inherit.
Conversely, heirs who receive a home or other assets held in a simple and inexpensive living trust can avoid probate altogether, regardless of the size of the decedent’s estate. That’s because a trust is a “living document” that lives on even after its creator dies, so its assets can automatically be passed along to heirs without prior approval of a probate judge.