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(How to Sell a Bob Vila Special) **The Yiddish word for home is "heym"
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
So, your "heym" is for sale! Rebbetzin Faige Twerski wrote, "Home immediately conjures the image of a safe haven, bringing out feelings akin to what the womb must have felt like--warm, secure, cared for, a sense of belonging to something greater than oneself."
The first thing you might want to do is to purchase the book ("bukh") titled, "Home Staging: The Winning Way to Sell Your Home for More Money" by Barb Schwarz (Wiley, $19.95).Staging is the process in which homes are enhanced to help prospective buyers visualize THEM in the house. It can involve removing excess furniture and clutter, repainting, or transforming a sewing room into a nursery to appeal to younger buyers.
Is there something unethical about staging a home? "Ver vaist?" Does the custom of answering a question with a question mean you never have to know anything? (a quote from the book, "1,003 Great Things About Being Jewish").Rabbi Judy Epstein said that this was a good question for "The Ethicist" column in The New York Times. She e-mailed me: " I don't consider this practice as unethical. You are showing off your home in its best light. It is like polishing a diamond and putting it in a setting that makes it look larger. You are entitled to show off your goods in a way that is most likely to make them attract a buyer. You are not allowed to mislead, but I don't think this does so. It shows that you are able to present the best that your home can offer. You may be doing the buyer a favor as well, showing a pot ential resident how to get the most from their house buying dollar."
I chuckle when I think of what my grandparents, Louis and Clara Gottlieb, would have thought of the idea of "staging." They resided in a five-room railroad flat on East 98th Street and Rutland Road in Brooklyn. Their Early Depression furniture included a Singer sewing machine, a kitchen table covered with oil-cloth, a glass-top living room table which contained "abus"/"nahit" (chic peas), and 2 armchairs protected by white crocheted doilies. Oh, yes, the kitchen contained "a pushke" (a box for collecting coins for the poor) and a "dumb waiter." IF grandma were to "stage" the sale of her apartment, would she have to remove all of her old copies of The Jewish Daily Forward? Would she make her refrigerator " odor free" by placing a container of baking soda on the shelf? Would she attempt to cover up the aroma of b eet horse-radish sauce, "epl" (apple) sauce, and sweet-potato and carrot meat tsimes with a hand dipped Havdalah candle with 6 wicks? Would she convert the second bedroom into an exercise room? And, would she be tempted to paint the kitchen "Wasp Green," a Douglas Adams term for the paint in the catalog that is quite obviously yellow? My "bobbe-zaideh" (grandparents), who passed away many years ago, would NEVER have comprehended the following real estate terms:ADORABLE - In classified ads, it translates as "small."
APARTMENT BUILDING - A place where the landlord AND the tenant are both trying to raise the rent.
BEI MIR BIST DU SHOWN - Berlin real estate. (coined by Anthony G. Bowman)
"BLTINS" - Unpainted orange crate stapled to the wall of the "UTLY RM"--a linen closet for which the door can't be found.
CEMENT POND - House with a swimming pool. (Named for the swimming pool in the old "Beverly Hillbillies" TV show). CHARMING LITTLE HOUSE/AFFORDABLE Now if we can just get it out of the tree.
DEJA VU - The baffling sensation that you've already visited this "Open House" and recognize the interior furnishings. DISNEYLAND - Alice Kramden's ("The Honeymooners") description of her apartment. The view is Fantasyland, the sink is Adventureland, the stove and ice box are Frontierland.
DRAMATIC - Few minutes from "di plazhe" (the beach). The house is dramatic in that in order to get to the beach (Rockaway Beach, Jones Beach, etc.) you have to run by a Hell's Angels clubhouse on the corner. (Art Buchwald term)
DEBTOR'S PRISON - An awful, tacky place, full of unspeakable horrors, brutality and deceit: noisy, with no privacy, and containing four bedro oms, two and a half baths, family room, six teevees, a breakfast nook, and a jacuzzi." (R. W. Jackson) ECONOMY APARTMENT - An overpriced plasterboard hovel in which the toilet above cannot be heard. (R. W. Jackson) FFF FETTERS - Non-removable air conditioner. (Vasily J. Ginnot)
FLUENT - Real estate agent capable of schmoozing about the condition of a home's "koymen" (chimney).
FSBO - For Sale By Owner
HANDYMAN'S SPECIAL - A building that has at least four walls (also see NEEDS SOME WORK).
HERCULEASE - Rental agreement so strong it cannot be broken. (Hy Kom ishane)
JERRY BUILT - House is constructed in a cheap, unsubstantial, or shoddy way.
"LG. SUNDK" - Large sundeck of light cinderblocks scattered near the kitchen door to cover a one-time pet cemetary.
MEDIA BLINTZ - real estate ads written for Jewish publications.
MOVE IN IYD - Move in--if you dare.
MOVE IN CONDITION - The 8-foot hole in the front yard has been boarded over and that, until the missing front porch and door turn up, it is, indeed, possible to move in by backing the moving van up to the kitchen door through the neighbor's driveway.
"NEEDS DAR" - Needs demolishing and replacement.
'NEEDS CCCC" - Needs "fir hundert toyznt" ($400,000) to be made livable.
"SOBRO" - Newly gentrified South Bronx area.
"STUP/VW - It's preferable to be in a dream-like stupor before viewing this home.
WA/BE - A bedroom capable of supporting a waterbed.
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Marjorie Gottl ieb Wolfe is not moving from
Syosset, New York.
She is convinced that
among the best home furnishings are
children and grandchildren.
