Decorate for Xmas if selling a house?

[anabelle]

We just put our house on the market. I am staging the house myself and am curious if I should decorate for Christmas. I know they say not to make the house look too personal, but are Christmas decorations considered personal? My daughter really wants to set up the tree.

 

[Minnie_me]

Absolutely! As long as it doesn't make your house too cluttered or crowded, you should absolutely decorate for the holidays! It will be so festive and cheery!

 

[Aliceacc]

I would, absolutely!!!!

It will make your house look "charming." And throw some cinnamon sticks into a pot of simmering water on the stove too.

 

[ajh88]

I say yes too! When my cousin and his wife were house-shopping a couple of years ago, they ended up buying a certain house because it was decorated so nicely for Christmas!

 

[anabelle]

Thanks so much. I think I can make it look cute without being too busy.

What about lights on the outside?

 

[ilandrazdsw]

Tree, lights, whatever you want! Staging with a tree may actually haelp a family invision themselves in the house for next Christmas. Be subtle, but definately don't deny you rdaughter (or self) a festive holiday. Now, despite what I have just told you we are not decorating (our is on the market too), but that is because we will be in WDW for Christmas and figure Mickey has done the work for us...plus we have 4 cats and heaven only knows what the house would look like if we left a tree up for 12 days with them alone

 

[design_mom]

We sold our house during the holidays, too, and our real estate agent advised us *not* to decorate for Christmas, but we did anyway.

His point was that you never know who is going to walk through your door and if it's someone who doesn't celebrate -- or just doesn't like your style of decorating -- you could turn them "off" right away.

On the other hand, you're still living in the house and IMHO you can't "stop living" because you're trying to sell. We put up our tree and a few other simple decorations -- enough for us to enjoy, but not overboard.

Our house sold quicker than average at the time, so I don't think it hurt us at all. I suppose it *could* have if "the perfect buyers" had been a non-celebrating family had come in and couldn't see past our decorations... but, that was a chance I was willing to take.

 

[minnie1012]

I decorated our house when it was on the market. I didn't go over board and I tried to keep the decorating more pretty than fun. We also did some stuff outside, lights etc.

 

[ms_missy66]

We went through that same thing a few years ago and our Christmas decorations were what sold the house! The buyers said, "It feels so cozy! We love where the tree goes!"

Definitely put up a tree!

 

[Leenie74]

In 2005, we put our house on the market the weekend before Thanksgiving, decorated for Christmas a week later, and sold the house 3 weeks after that. So my vote would be yes, decorate! Consider it festive staging. Good luck!

 

[barkley]

i think if your home facilitates decorating it can help with december showings-on the other hand, if your home is not decoration friendly it can point out a negative that you probably don't want a potential buyer to be aware of.

i know this sounds wierd but let me explain-our current and former home are ideal for putting up a tree. the rooms are such that furniture can be set up in a variety of places such that a tree can be put in the place that it looks best and has easy access to an outlet. the rental we lived in was AWFUL to try to put a tree in. the rooms were deceptivly large appearing but the reality is there was only one way you could arrange the furniture in the living room and the den so putting up a tree either entail removing most of the furniture or putting the tree in an awful location that blocked part of the walkway and entailed multiple visable extention cords. the one year we celebrated christmas there made me realize that the worst thing a seller of one of those homes could do is put up a tree and point out to a potential buyer what a problem they would encounter.

play up the positives-if you have anything that helps with decorating and you decorate make sure your agent knows so they can point it out. our current home for example has an outlet built into the roof specificaly for the purpose of lights-that was a great feature when we considering it.

 

[tlh0726]

Decorate!.
My co-worker bought her current house, because as soon as they walked through the door, there stood a 2 story tree (cathedral ceilings). She totally overlooked that 2 of the bedrooms were rather small. She wanted that house because of the tree.

My agent said that she sold our house because when they walked in the door all they could smell was the turkey that I had in the oven and the woodstove had the house so warm and toasty. She said the guy sat down on the recliner put his feet up, looked at the TV, took a deep breath and said honey you can go look at the rest of the house but I am sitting here until you both come back with the contract to sign.

Good luck!!!

 

[ilandrazdsw]

Decorate!.
My co-worker bought her current house, because as soon as they walked through the door, there stood a 2 story tree (cathedral ceilings). She totally overlooked that 2 of the bedrooms were rather small. She wanted that house because of the tree.

My agent said that she sold our house because when they walked in the door all they could smell was the turkey that I had in the oven and the woodstove had the house so warm and toasty. She said the guy sat down on the recliner put his feet up, looked at the TV, took a deep breath and said honey you can go look at the rest of the house but I am sitting here until you both come back with the contract to sign.

Good luck!!!

Did they contract for the tree to come with the house too???

 

[SharpMomOfTwo]

I would 100% do a tree, but I would not do any lights on the outside of the house because a new buyer may be upset that you just put a nail in the house - I know thats what would be going through my DHs head!

 

[megthewonderful]

Absolutely! We sold out house 3 years ago between Thanksgiving and Christmas and now we are selling our current house at the same time of year. Both times our realtors told us to go ahead and decorate. They said to make the house feel cozy, but not to go overboard. They also reminded us not to go crazy with outdoor decorations. They could be buried under feet of snow when it comes to move or be frozen to our gutters!

 

[ilandrazdsw]

I would 100% do a tree, but I would not do any lights on the outside of the house because a new buyer may be upset that you just put a nail in the house - I know thats what would be going through my DHs head!

If the nails are already up from last year I'd do it...but not just to sell a festive house.