Smokers' houses harder to sell

Wilmington (DE) News Journal ^ | September 26, 2003 | Maureen Milford

[Gabz]

As tobacco has become less socially acceptable and home buyers are more aware of indoor air quality, houses that reek of cigarette smoke are becoming a harder sell, experts report.

"It definitely is a major turnoff," said Michael Wilson, a real estate agent with Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors in Brandywine Hundred. "Buyers immediately think about what they'll have to do to eliminate the odor. It's a real drawback and a real negative."

[Judith Anne]

I have a suggestion: Look up "My Comments" click on it, and read the last ten you've posted here. Note the similarity of each post. Note the number of times you've addressed a fellow freeper with negative words about smoking, even though YOU KNOW that statistically, one fourth of adults in this country smoke.

You've deliberately offended with negative assessments and judgements AT LEAST one fourth of the people reading this thread.

You've said that nicotine is "caked" on walls, that the walls are "brown" with smoke, that the house is "filthy" with smoke, ad nauseum. I say you're exaggerating, and I say you're deliberately trying to offend smokers and prove your non-smoking self to be superior.

I am a part-time smoker. A pack lasts me four or five days. My patients and my co-workers cannot tell that I am a smoking NURSE. My physician was shocked when I told him I was a smoker--AFTER my physical. My car does not smell like smoke--though I smoke in it. My house does not smell like dog or smoke, even though I and my husband smoke in it and have an indoor dog.

Your posts are offensive. You don't know what you're talking about. You've got ordinary smokers houses confused with those flophouses you want to renovate for a quick buck and foist on some unsuspecting hapless naive buyer.

How do you like it? The bad treatment you give us smokers comes back to you. Is it fun?

[SheLion]

The prissy anti-smokers don't like that I smoke - they can stay out of my house. You guys will always be welcome.

Thank you, Gabz. And you as well!

[Max McGarrity]

This is not a personal opinion. Some homes do reek of cigarette smoke for a long time. Some people also have a better sense of smell than others. One thing I know, is that no smoker realizes how smelly the stuff is until he quits. I have probably a dozen exsmokers in my family, and none could smell it very much before they quit. It's like wearing perfume or men's cologne. After a while, you just don't smell it on yourself.

Well, at least you qualify your insults to "some" homes instead of painting with the broad brush common in this thread. However, you're wrong when you claim "no smoker realizes how smelly the stuff is until he quits. Most of us were, at one time or another, nonsmokers, and many of us can remember it. To me, the smell of tobacco smoke (unless stale and old) is wonderful and has always been. It's also true that people, often people I don't know well and who have no reason to lie to me make it a point to comment on how fresh and clean my house smells. I'm sure you'll deny the possibility, but I've even had young ladies touch my arm and tell me that I smell wonderful. So my experience tells me that those who have trained their noses to be so hypersensitive have the problem, not those of us who live and let live.

[SheLion]

You've got ordinary smokers houses confused with those flophouses you want to renovate for a quick buck and foist on some unsuspecting hapless naive buyer.

Hahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[Max McGarrity]

This is not a personal opinion. Some homes do reek of cigarette smoke for a long time. Some people also have a better sense of smell than others. One thing I know, is that no smoker realizes how smelly the stuff is until he quits. I have probably a dozen exsmokers in my family, and none could smell it very much before they quit. It's like wearing perfume or men's cologne. After a while, you just don't smell it on yourself.

Well, at least you qualify your insults to "some" homes instead of painting with the broad brush common in this thread. However, you're wrong when you claim "no smoker realizes how smelly the stuff is until he quits. Most of us were, at one time or another, nonsmokers, and many of us can remember it. To me, the smell of tobacco smoke (unless stale and old) is wonderful and has always been. It's also true that people, often people I don't know well and who have no reason to lie to me make it a point to comment on how fresh and clean my house smells. I'm sure you'll deny the possibility, but I've even had young ladies touch my arm and tell me that I smell wonderful. So my experience tells me that those who have trained their noses to be so hypersensitive have the problem, not those of us who live and let live.

[HamiltonJay]

Like I said before Gabz, even blind squirrels find nuts on occassion.

I have been in markets where you could put up a shack full of dog crap and people would pay you more than your asking, and I have seen that same market fall 40% in six months! I have been in markets that decline and in markets that flatline.

You are right I don't operate in deleware, which is why your "reality" really doesn't mean squat to me... if property values shot up in the time between your neighbors sale and yours your not proving anything. If your neighbors sale was under duress, unemployment, debt problems, divorce or facing foreclosure, then they would likely have sold for less than any other unit on the block. Simply stating I got what I asked and it was more than my neighbor got doesn't prove squat.

I have bought houses for less than 40% of their value, does that mean that the guy 3 doors down who got his asking prices house is worth more than the one I bought? Hell no, it just means he was not as motivated to sell as the seller I bought from. I know you won't believe this, but I know people who have literally had homes GIVEN to them by desperate owners.. just up and deeded to them on the spot and walked away without even getting $1 from the buyer.

Your 1 sale vs 1 other sale in 1 instant in time, doesn't portray in any meaningful way a valid arguement. Without knowing the exact specifics of the sales, blind comparisons based on well my neighbor sold for XXX... WHO CARES.. that doesn't mean anything.

I can sell a house easily for 10% more than it should sell for by giving my buyer good terms on the sale, and you know what, even an appraisor will recognize my terms ADDED value to the house and justify the sales price without any problem, even if no other house around it sold for my Sq. Ft price... I can also just as easily get a house for 20-30-40-50 or even 60% less than its appraised value but that doesn't mean its only worth 40% of its appraised value against my neighbors home... if it did, then ever time I bought a house I'd be dropping property values... which isn't the case, in fact I usually end up raising values when I go in and buy a property.

Go try and fight your assessment armed with nothing more than "my neighbors house sold for less than what you have me assessed at" and see how far that will get you.. absolutely NOWHERE.

I am glad you got your asking price, really I am... but don't think for one minute your two little data points prove a greater point.

[Judith Anne]

And don't think for one minute that your bragadoccio impresses anyone here one bit.

[eeriegeno]

Now I ask you... Would you rather be in the presence of a person who blows second hand cigarette smoke through his mouth or blows a blast of methane through his anus? (The average human discharges about three pints of methane per day)... I, for one, have been on non-smoking flights where a nonchalant person did just that. The smell was horiffic, most likely unsanitary, and made me want to puke. If we are going to have laws enacted about air quality, I sure hope that they include a no-farting clause. Especially in confined spaces....... And I would definitely not buy a house where farting was a common occurrance. Else, I would probably sue the previous owner....

[HamiltonJay]

No, I rehab houses, and have to clean up the messes, nothing anti smoking about it. Its flat out reality. I could care less if someone smokes in their house, just don't tell me it doesn't impact the physical aspects of the property.. because it does, I know I've fixed up enough houses to see that nice crusty residue and smell first hand mroe than enough times...

When the nicotine/tar stains are still visible through 3 layers of paint and 3 layers of primer, ain't nothing activist about it... its reality.

[Judith Anne]

Smoker's crust!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

That is complete unmitigated BS!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I have to congratulate you--Crust! Really! Where are you doing your rehabbing? Hell's Kitchen? Black stains and crust! Now I've seen it all.

[Slip18]

Never had a problem selling my house in Laguna Niguel, and I'm a smoker. I'm not a heavy smoker, but I smoked in every room in that house. I had buyers everywhere. House was in escrow in two weeks. So this is another set of lies from the Smoking Nazis.

[lockjaw02]

I'm sorry for not clarifying that I meant for pre-lived in homes with obviously well worn carpets, not those where they're still fairly new and functional.

I'm not just trying to troll, but even in the rust belt, do you pay sticker (asking) price for everything? As you, yourself, also keep pointing out, it is the condition of the house dictates the price. It has nothing to do with if the previous owners were smokers or not, but how well they maintained the property. If carpets are old, worn, and/or extremely smelly, then the price of new carpets will most definitely be reflected in the buyer's bid or else will already be discounted in the asking price. Yes, even in your part of the country.

[Gabz]

Your arrogance knows no end, does it?

This article just got your juices flowing, didn't it?

The fact that you have experience in real estate means nothing in relation to my point of posting this article if you have no experience with real estate in Delaware or with the so-called experts quoted in this article.

[Max McGarrity]

No its not a link in the chain, its REALITY. You are a buyer are choosing your next home, you walk into a house that has smoke stained walls and smells of tobacco... like it or not that immediately drives down the price. Its not because the house is less healthy, its because the house is less CLEAN!

Again, typical of anti-smokers, you mix fact and fantasy and try to slip it through as truth, but in fact it's your own warped view that's driving your opinions. You ASSUME that the walls are stained (mine aren't) and that the place smells of tobacco (mine doesn't). What you are saying is that no smoker can have a clean house and that's ridiculous.

Home buyers buy on EMOTION far more than logic...

Which us WHY this IS just another link in the chain.

[Slip18]

I'm all three, also! Yay! Only I can beat you in the firearm department. I have 17 and they all are working properly. I think that's the reason my husband, Cyber, married me. LOL!

[Gabz]

Blow it out your nose. Or some other appropriate orifice.

[eXe]

Yeah I would have replied to that post but I was too busy with my sand blaster chipping away at the "Smokers crust" on my keyboard to reply. lol

:)

[Judith Anne]

When the nicotine/tar stains are still visible through 3 layers of paint and 3 layers of primer, ain't nothing activist about it... its reality.

That is sheer fantasy nonsense. Complete BS. I just called a RE agent friend in Wichita, and she has never heard of such conditions, and is a non-smoker. I couldn't believe some of the stuff you were posting, so I checked with somebody who knows their housing markets. She was more polite than I am, just said you sounded like some kind of fanatic.

[Max McGarrity]

All this article does is try to influence minds of normal people bombarded with never-ending subliminal and some not so subliminal messages as illustrated by Joe Bob Brigg's article Non Fumar? Comprende and reinforce the value system of those politically correct lemmings to love to follow the anti-smoker pied-piper in demonizing 1/4 of the population. Before you get mad thinking I'm throwing an ad hom at you, I do place you in the ranks of the former.

VERY well said, lockjaw! Thanks.

[Rebelbase]

"Its like trying to explain an what ugly is to a blind person."

The Nico Brown-Shirts descend upon these threads like flies on sh_t.