Hi All! Yes, I am begining to re-understand about particular style homes. There had been a beautiful mid century modern ranch in our area for sale a few years ago that needed sprucing up inside to bring it back to it's original 50's grandure. The architect on the outside was just amazing! I know the price started high due to it being so unusual. I guess the owner and REagent thought there was a market for it in "Colonial Haven". Well it sat there for ever and the price just kept on dropping. Had I not moved to were I am I might have considered it at the fire sale price it was even though it was too small for us. I also remember a Frank Lloyd Wright ranch home for sale in lower Farfield Co., CT, just after we bought our home. That had a tough time selling (his rooms are pretty small). It wasn't going anywhere until the agent realized he had to specialize the advertising and target the correct buyers. I forgot how long it was on the market and what it eventually sold for though. Thank you all for reminding me that I DO have something different and not everyone is as enamoured with a ranch as I am. I guess you might say "Ranch people are a rare breed!!!!" ;) Well, back to my boxing and sprucing!! One thing I was happy about though was none of the agents thought we needed staging and were happy with the way I decorated (it did take me till this move to finally find my style!). Felt really great about that since when we were selling our last home (THE COLONIAL!) the word "dated" came around a few time and I cringed! We ripped out perfectly good wall to wall and painted brown trim white. Funny thing, I had a brief though of doing that from the begining when we first bought the house, but the carpeting was in wonderful shape, plus I am from the wall to wall generation and I really did find it to be warm and comfortable, ( an aside for the younger generation - growing up the the 50's hard wood floors ment your family was poor since only the well off people had wall to wall, plus it did make your home feel warmer and you didn't have to deal with all those dust bunnies!!!) and the brown molding was great because all you had to do was dust it, there was no upkeep! As soon as we ripped out the carpet, had the floors sanded and painted the trim, the house looked amazing and we kicked ourselves for not doing it earlier. (hence I now am with it and have beautifully sanded wood floors, area carpets and white trim!)

This modern eclectic style is known as Neo-Classical Revival rather than Colonial or Colonial Revival. It was popular in the late 70's and 80's especially with southern developers. It borrows from many other styles but is primarily derived from the Neo-Classical style popular after the First World War.

I have a pretty good idea of the price of windows. 8k cheap - 20k mid/expensive. And the roof would be about 7k shingles and (not entirely sure yet) but I think around 10-11k metal. Gutters will be what we put into them. But we need and will use windows and a new roof and a painted house. I mean, it will take a while to pay back in heating costs, but in the winter sitting by the front window, there is a gusty cold zone. And I'm in a mid-atlantic area, I'm not going to start covering my windows in plastic like my VT relatives! But the porch would just be cosmetic unless we actually put enough into it that we would actually use it. Heating, cooling, more windows, bug protection, lighting, finishes. And I'd rather have that someday in the far future if we ever choose to invest in it in the back of the house which is very private. Believe me, I know, before we even closed I had mocked up this but we tabled the idea after much discussion: And the typical simple extended porch you'd see with with a colonial doesn't excite me either. Sure it might not be that expensive, but why should I invest in turning 'bleh' (to me) into 'that's ok.' I'd rather invest in something I really like. I'm not investing in curb appeal for future buyers, but in my own home satisfaction.

My experience in selling our house in Oct 2009 was atypical for our area ( nothing was selling in out area or neighborhood, but I think will relate to your situation. The house was built in 1990. I have not read all of the responses but here goes. We painted the entire house to a neutral walls and white trim because it needed it. We did not paint the brick FP. We removed the wall paper in the FR but left the wainscot and folk wallpaper in the Kitchen and Bfst nook. Realtor had a cow and said house would never sell, but this still looked great. Maybe not HGTV but I was tried of taking wallpaper down... We replaced all of the carpet- bedrooms, finished lower level and FR- with a neutral flat more commercial berber from HD. Because it needed it and looked worn. This was cheap with free install. We had already moved out of the house and the upstairs had no furniture but all the windows all had white wide slat wood blinds. The living room had my Persian area rug and the piano. The dining room had a garage sale round dining table with a floor length canvas drop cloth for the table cloth and four black dining chairs. Oh and an ivy plant in the center. The family room had my old sofa with a white slipcover and my old leather ottoman with a copper tray on it. Oh yeah and two throw pillows. I changed out the kitchen knobs. I spray painted the light fixtures bronze, these were cheap shiny brass. Our house was spotless. Inside and outside and empty except for the mentioned items. The realtor listed it on a Friday night and it was sold by 7pm Sat night to the first people who looked at it Sat am. For asking price. Within 5% of two comps. We became friends with the buyers as we built a house on our adjoining property and they said they chose our house because it was newly painted and had new carpet so they didn't have to do that. They loved the wallpaper in the kitchen but immediately changed out the kitchen knobs. They wanted to buy my "dining set"... This house was under $500.000 and we spent under $3,000 to do the carpet and I did the painting. I will say that if the house was a more expensive and more upscale neighborhood, I would still have emptied and minimally staged. Nobody is buying your décor and even if you have to pack up and put everything into storage and live like Spartans I would do that at least. When we started cleaning it became apparent that the paint and carpet needed to be done. Once a house is emptied unless its newly painted even if clean it still can look grungy IMO. Sometimes people give a painting cash allowance at closing - that might suffice for some buyers. Most of the staging/updating I believe if for a certain price point. You know to help buyers choose between several closely comparable properties. If your home is appealing to a certain demographic because of a higher price then wouldn't those buyers want to pick their own flooring, paint colors fixtures etc?