Perhaps. I’m honestly not sure how this kitchen could have cost anywhere near 15 grand. The cabinets are all just repainted and the stove doesn’t look particularly extravagant.
Yeah, at this point in time I basically just assume everything is fake until proven real.
And I’ve been around some of these house flippers, they love to brag in public about how much money and effort they’re spending to renovate these houses but in private they always brag about how much money they’re saving by cutting various corners and getting everything done on the cheap.
I found one local house for $70K that had a huge number of problems, like cracks and rust showing through the stucco exterior, broken fascia boards, upstairs that was only 6’ high, stairway that came up into the upstairs bathroom etc. etc. (the house dated from around 1850 or so). I passed on it, but I was surprised to see that it sold just a few days later, and even more surprised when it was re-listed less than two months later for $195K. I went to see it again and it was a classic lipstick-on-a-pig flip: just grey paint and those nasty grey fake wood vinyl floor planks everywhere. I’ve never been so flat out offended by a flip before - and the thing sold almost immediately for the asking price. I feel sorry for the schmucks who bought that thing, although they probably turned around and sold it for $300K.
Yeah, no, I’m pretty sure that’s the floor. If it was a countertop, it would only work to create the illusion of a floor from one specific angle, and I kinda doubt a house flipper would go to the length of building a countertop for that particular purpose. Yeah, a picture from that angle might help attract potential buyers, but it would be immediately visible when you come in for an inspection. I’m pretty sure there’s more effective and less obvious ways to screw your buyers.
I don’t think you can get purple marble? If you could, I can’t imagine youd use it in a floor for a kitchen like this. It’d be for a counter used as an accent piece for a millionaire’s mansion’s 2nd kitchen.
Ah, I understood immediately how ugly it was. It’s my kind of ugly and I’d never tire of it, but I understand. Purple is a lot, especially such a bold purple.
For marketability, it’s horrendous. While I’m open to dramatic, unique, and off the wall stuff it’s still not my taste.
BUT! I would absolutely take advantage of the discount I’d get on the property after it’s spent over a year on the market. I also wouldn’t be in a rush to remodel, but would look for ways to highlight it till the novelty wore off.
Yeah, everyone has an ugly that speaks to us, purple veined marble is apparently one of mine. And that’s part of the beauty of people. Seeing this makes me more sympathetic to the people who love neon animal prints because I too have terrible taste in my own way.
I kind of like it too. When I was 12 my parents asked what colour I wanted my bedroom painted. “Purple.” They painted it off-white. I’m over 70 now and still have never had a purple room. My kitchen is pale grey ffs.
Bro you’re 70, paint that shit whatever you want and when you die in that house it’s the next owners problem not yours. It’s not an investment at your stage like it is people in their 30s painting everything white or grey so they don’t offend future buyers.
I helped a lady your age pick out a color for a room in her house, and she ended up going for a very bright peach. She loved it so much she put it in every room in her house where she didn't have a color picked out.
If you aren't planning to sell in a year or two, I say pick something that makes you happy when you see it. Realtors might have a different favorite color in 5 years.
If you’re gonna go for the unusual, you have to fully commit to it. Don’t stop halfway, because it’s gonna be cringe. But if you go all the way, they will call it art, and they’ll pay you multiple times over what you paid for it.
With art, there is an inverse relationship between the number of people who will buy it and how much they’ll pay for it. Art everyone wants is cheap, niche art is expensive.
If you go full send, you can charge more if the stars align and you can find a buyer.
Well, to bring it back to the OP, the problem here is they clearly didn’t go full send. It’s definitely tacky, but not tacky enough. How about some gold fixtures and doorknobs? What’s up with that hideous tiling behind the stove? Why is there a regular old ceiling light and not a friggin’ Svarovski chandelier? Spend another 15 grand on those and you might find someone who’s willing (and high enough) to pay you 20% over ask.
What I’m saying is that it’s a tradeoff. The fuller the send, the harder it is to find a buyer, but the more they’ll pay.
Conversely, the emptier(???) the send, the more buyers will be interested, but the less you can charge.
I think going tackier would let them charge more if they found a buyer, but it would make it even less likely to find a buyer. This is already a full enough send the they’re struggling to find anyone interested, send it any harder and there would be no chance.
Yes, but that sorta implies that it’s a linear relationship, which it likely isn’t.
I’m thinking it’s probably more like the uncanny valley, with a trough in the middle where your send is neither full enough nor standard enough to find ANY buyers at all. Then again, there were quite a few commenters here who said they love it so perhaps I’m wrong about that.
We’re both just speculating here. I’d be interested if anyone has done any studies on this, I doubt it. Not really something useful for society.
I was basing my speculation off of the very little I’ve learned about the sale of art (paintings, etc) where art with a broad appeal doesn’t go for much, but niche art will sell for much more if you can find a buyer. But I’m sure there are depths to that of which I’m completely unaware, and I’m sure it can’t just be applied to home renos just like that. I just get a gut feeling that there are some parallels.
Well, yes. The Wikipedia article I linked does indeed say that this is a hypothesis, which means it hasn’t been conclusively proven yet. But it does also list a number of reasons that lead to this hypothesis being proposed, and there’s a long-ish paragraph on the research that has been done on it. But yes, as long as it’s a hypothesis, it’s still in the realm of speculation.
It seems however that your experience does somewhat back that up, judging by the “if you can find a buyer”. Basically, what I’m saying is, that if depends on or determines whether an artwork falls into the uncanny valley. If you can find one, it was on the other side of it. If you can’t, then it was in it.
Basically, picture the graph from that article, but instead of “human likeness”, we label the x-axis “artistic appeal”, and the y-axis “amount sold for”. Get rid of the dotted line, and on the solid line we replace “stuffed animal” with “broad appeal” and “corpse” with “niche appeal that doesn’t sell”, and the far end of it we label “niche appeal that DOES sell” and place it much higher up, to where “healthy person” is. Hope that makes sense.
I’m pretty familiar with the uncanny valley, and I don’t really think it applies to kitchens beyond as a metaphor. But then again, you could say the same about my relating it to the fine art market (and I cannot stress enough how little my expertise is in this regard lol).
Nothing with people IRL is ever a linear relationship so I imagine the truth is somewhere in-between lol
Like I said, it was just a speculation I had, because for me, this kitchen definitely falls into uncanny valley territory. A little more ooomph and it might have paid off, or a little less and it might have sold reasonably. But again, there were many commenters here who actually said they DID love it, so perhaps I’m wrong. But that’s assuming they actually have enough money to actually buy it, which at least some of them admitted they don’t.
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