Where's the romance?

Tonight I hosted an open home buyers preview evening for a new property I have listed. It is by invitation only, with a couple of bottles of wine and a cheese platter.

This event has a number of benefits. It makes our buyers feel special. It cuts down on the intrusion on the sellers. And most importantly, it brings emotion into the process. The idea is if the buyers have a glass of wine and a relaxed, social atmosphere, they might start to imagine what it would be like when they are entertaining their family and friends. It turns the house into a home.

At least, that is the idea. It seems the buyers of Hobart have lost the romance.

When I go into a house, I immediately start imagining myself living there. How does the house suit my lifestyle? What are the features that would make my life better? How does it make me feel? Can I picture this being my home? Where would my furniture fit?

The house I was showing is a wonderful house for imagination and emotion. It is open, sunny, warm, big windows, wonderful view, massive kitchen, well designed, with 1940's aesthetics. Walking through the front door, you immediately sense the possibilities for a range of buyers. An older couple could love it, a family with young kids, a family with teenagers, or a professional couple who love entertaining. It's a blank slate. I love it, and if I had $450,000, I'd make it mine.

So I was surprised and saddened when the people who came through only noticed the minor faults and not the potential. They saw a crack in the wall, not the family together around the tv. They saw dated tiles in the bathroom, not a barbeque on the deck. They saw peeling paint on the window sills, not the view through the window. They saw a messy yard, not a secret garden for a child's swing. They saw trees that needed pruning, not a shady spot for a hammock in summer.

Where is the romance?

Cliche machine

I work as a real estate agent. Part of my job is writing the blurbs for property advertisements. This is a task which I had thought, before I started attempting it, that I would be quite good at. It turns out, I'm not yet. For some reason, when writing real estate, I turn into a cliche machine.

It's possible that because there are only so many words and ways to describe a house, everything that can possibly be said already has been. I scour the thesaurus, looking for alternatives to "spacious" or "comfortable" or "cosy" or "large". Even the alternatives are overused.

Another problem is that you are writing for the lowest common denominator, and you hit trouble if you deviate too far from common vocabulary. For example, my friend who is a well-educated and eloquent man, sent me a text message the other day after reading a competitor's ad in the Real Estate Guide. Charlotte's in fine form this weekend. What the fuck is a "timeless inglenook"?

I spend all afternoon trying to paint a picture with words, trying to sound original and enticing, and within 90-120 word count. It is a lot more difficult than I ever expected it would be.