Kassy

After looking at pictures of houses advertised for sale/rent in realestate.com and domain.com, am just wondering. These pictures look like they're fit to be in an Interiors/Inside-Outside magazine!! They all look so fab (my house would never sell if I took pictures of it at this very moment and advertised it).

So what's the story? Are they really that good or have they been "touched up"?

helsbells79

My hubby and I were having that same conversation the other day! We were looking in a real estate agents window and only one of the houses for sale looked like a 'normal' house inside...the rest looked like show homes!!!!

Not sure what the deal is though...so not really answering your question...sorry!!

asprilla

From what I've seen, over here a lot of people will go "all out" to tidy their home and make it look like a "show home" when they are selling. Not sure if it's like that in the UK though.

milly123

My property that i am renting has just gone on realestate.com and i dont think the picture do it any justice.

northernlights

We sold our house about 6 months ago and the agent used a proffessional photographer for the shots. The photos came out great, rooms looked alot larger than in real life - wide angle lense perhaps? I couldn't believe that it was actually our house as they looked like magazine shots. Some estate agents use their mobile phone cameras and photos come out crap and don't really justify the home they are selling, so you can't tell for sure.

NickyC

This makes a change - people on here are usually whinging about how crap places look in the photos.

The classier (more expensive properties) are often styled by a professional complete with rented furniture etc. You get to recognise when they do it - the sofas, rugs, cushions and carefully-colour-co-ordinated vases have a hotel-room look about them.

When the photos show an untidy place with dirty washing-up in the sink - then you know it's a rental property and the current tenants aren't being helpful!

northernlights

Alot of people don't give a monkeys either. I've been to home opens where they have been dirty, filthy, smelly (dog & cat urine), dog poo in the garden, full of junk, dust and these aren't even rentals! How can people not care about their largest asset?

ABCDiamond

I'll second that.

If a place doesn't look very good when being sold, you can normally get a decent discount, therefore most people put some effort into getting the best price.

There are also furniture hire places that specialise in furniture, paintings etc., for preparing houses for sale.

furkew

I'm sure it was wendy that found a picture about a year ago on one of the real estate sites of the back garden of a house, and a dog was having a crap in the picture.

Some houses look great in the pictures, and some are absolute shockers.

flodsfive

Ours did, thankfully.
Because we picked it on line and never saw it till we moved over
I plead tempory insanity .

It worked out in the end and we love the house, we already new the road. However, I'm not advocating it as a good idea

louie

We did the same, we'd owned it six months before we set foot in it. Mind you, it looked tatty in the pictures because it was tatty, but that was no surprise.

Jan4kids

Taking a different angle....The house might look nice and might well BE nice too....but it's more about it's location than anything else. On the otherside of the world a suburb name is likely to mean very little. You probably won't know about the hill outside the house that makes for loud engine noise from cars passing,the rented house across the way that has 3 old cars rotting in the the front yard, the local schools might not be favourable etc, etc

We were disappointed so many times.....

But on the flip-side a house which looked nothing special and unmodernised was just right for us....the older houses and areas feel much more homely in my opinion.

Happy Home Hunting

Kassy

Who exactly is buying all those million dollar+ properties now with all this credit crisis and recession? I am guessing these people must be really rich and can afford to just keep them (?) until they get what they're asking (read somewhere that a majority of the houses had very little mortgages left on them - can't remember where).

stuart.and.michelle

Whenever we look at the estate agents websites we are less than enamoured with any of the homes on offer. They always seem very expensive and very poorly advertised. I mean who wants to make a move that kind of distance and not be more than comfortable in their new home!!!!

We've been checking out the new house builders in the perth area. Namely celebration homes, scott park and gemmill homes. These all seem to be pretty reasonable (less than $500k) for both land and house package. Can anyone verify if these types of estates are common and if the price ranges are correct.

Thanks in advance.

Stuart & Michelle

Geelong Gent

Kassy actually you will find they are highly geared - the mortgage however would normally be through another business in which cash/equity was released to pay "cash" for the property.

Alot are getting slaughtered through margin calls. Margin lending is where you borrow from the bank to invest in the stockmarket. If your investment drops below a certain point the bank do a margin call - that is request further funds to top up the investment (ie reduce the banks risk). If you can't up the investment the bank sells the stock (which creates a snowball affect on the value of that stock/share).
You normally only get a few hours notice (ie 5pm call with 9am deadline).