Sometimes, people go through times that try their little minds and stretch them to the point of near-insanity. Trying to sell our stoopid house has landed Christian and me in precisely this situation. The good thing about our latest collective mental state is that we are both in the land of creating mass hilarity out of every situation, without regard to other people. It's a nice cocoon.
I present to you the email sent by my husband to our realtor yesterday. Keep in mind that this woman barely knows us, beyond the fact that we bought a house we couldn't afford, we have a bunch of "quirky" "artsy" items in our home, and I insisted on buying all new stainless steel kitchen appliances in order to sell the house for TOP DOLLAH. (Again, Designed To Sell).
Without further adieu:
Hi Ann,
Good news about the showings. I'm not a marketing genius but I play one at work. I have some ideas that I'd like to run by you regarding strategy for selling our house. These ideas have proven effective with the sale of other items in the marketplace and I'd like to simply apply them to the marketing of our home.
#1. It's Christmas time. Family, togetherness, cozy. Think Norman Rockwell. I've gone ahead and purchased a reindeer for the front step. It's in transit from Manitoba and (fingers crossed) should be delivered tomorrow by 9 am. It's coming with 5 bales of hay for feeding but you don't need to know that so never mind.
#2. The smell when you first walk in the door. We've all heard the schtick about baking bread before showings, having cookies just out of the oven, etc. I've hit a "home run" with this one. I contacted a flooring varnish company based out of Peotone called "Stickyfeet Inc.". In my dealings with them, we came up with a varnish made from cinnamon oil. I will be applying that tonight to all of the wooden floors. Dry time is only 3 hrs so we're good with that--no need to worry.
#3. Curb appeal. By analyzing current cosmetic trends out of New York, in this economic crisis it's proven that women this season are leaning towards jewel tones for make-up. In applying this trend to the housing market, just this morning I finalized a product I call " window blush" (working description--waiting to hear from patent office re: usability). It is a slightly opaque powdered "blush" in electric pink and blue that you apply to the interior side of all of the windows. First floor windows will be blue, drawing your eye up to the second floor, powdered with pink .
4. Animals. People love animals. Since you didn't play up the fact that we have a lizard as previously discussed, (I guess handshake contracts went the way of Atari) I have procured a Komodo Dragon from the wildlife preserve in Gili Motang for the next two weeks. I will have it chained next to the fireplace with plenty of raw beef so as not to tempt him with the fresh warm smell of a human hand.
5. Think walls lined with rubber gloves.
I'm confident that these simple yet effective strategies will ensure a quick sale of our property. I wasn't sure I could accomplish these in such a short timeframe, but since I did, I'd like to re-list the house at $495,000 Euros. I'm sure you'd agree.
Lastly, I want to apologize ahead of time if you feel like I've stepped on your toes at all with this. If you'd like, just bring a Santa hat for the Dragon and we'll call it even steven.
Best,
Christian.
The best part of this is that she took the time to write back:
Christian,
I don't feel you have stepped on my toes at all, in fact, I appreciate your
willingness to take the lead on these items. I have just a couple "tweeks".
1) I love the reindeer idea but I think the presentation could be enhanced with
the addition of several elves. These are hard to come by this time of the year
but given the economic slowdown I think we can borrow at least three from the
workshop until after the holidays and after that I'm sure we can get all the
elves we want.
2) The "window blush" is perfect. Drawing the eye upward is ALWAYS a good
thing. What do you think about big, really big, awnings?
3) The Komodo Dragon worries me just a bit. I know it is possible to get
salmonella posioning from iguanas but I'm not sure about Komodos. Never mind,
what's a deadly disease compared to a quick sale.
I'll let you know what the agents think and if you have any other brain storms,
please, do not hesitate to call.
Yours,
Ann
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