Whenever I am working with a home seller, and the home has a lot of wallpaper, I usually recommend that they remove it prior to the first day that it is listed. When I bring this up, I am usually greeted with a great deal of resistance. Here are a few reasons that I have heard for not removing wallpaper:
1. The wallpaper has a story behind it...it brings back happy memories for the sellers. They remember the pains they went through to pick the perfect pattern that would go with all of their furniture and decorations.
2. They paid a LOT of money for that perfect wallpaper!
3. It is too much of a pain to remove. Removing wallpaper does require the application of chemicals or steaming the paper off of the walls. And after the paper is removed, the walls underneath may need to be patched and touched up in order to restore a smooth finish.
However, kind seller, please remember that wallpaper is an extremely personal choice. This fact is demonstrated by the myriad of selections whenever you go into a home decor store. There are thousands and thousands of choices out there to match the unique tastes and preferences of the homeowner.
So my question is this: Do you want to limit your buyer pool to that one buyer who loves the wallpaper as much as you do? Of course you don't. When you put your house on the market, you must market to the broadest audience possible. I am not trying to be difficult, I just want what you want: To SELL your house.
Kathleen Cooper Best Option *** RE/MAX Professional Associates *** LICENSED IN MA!
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I am glad that wallpaper is out. It seems so dated and usually is not tastefully done.
I'll make it easy for you. Hire a home stager and let him/her play "bad cop" to your "good cop." They will normally take it better from us than they will from their Realtor, and your relationship with them will be preserved in the process. Having just stripped wallpaper in my own home I can sympathize with them, but it's still gotta go.
Sometimes I think they have looked at it so long, they think it is OK.
I remember helping my mother remove wall-paper as a kid, it is tedious work...but the next owner doesn't want to do it either.
WALLPAPER IS OUT AND VINYL WALL LETTERING IS IN!
The worst, is the wall paper has been up so long, that when it started to come down on it's own, someone used glue to put it back up and the glue stained through . Some of the older sellers just have a difficult time understanding that it has to go.
It's so true--there's nothing more emotionally fraud than wallpaper when you're dealing with a seller who at one time had been so proud of the choice. It sometimes breaks my heart... There's one exception, though: in some old houses, where the paper has been chosen as part of a renovation in keeping with the place's Victorian or Art-and-Crafts style, I have advised people to leave it in some of the rooms to emphasize the character of the house. In such cases, even though most buyers will get rid of it, they often marvel at it as a period effect. Admittedly, that's rare. Most of the time, it's the terrible fruit/vegetables stuff in the kitchen or the swirly 70s-type flowers in the dining room...