The idealised vision of home-buying, which is perpetuated by mortgage ads, proved to be far from our own experience. We’d naively envisioned exploring elegantly-designed chambers, breathlessly whispering our admiration, and expecting our banking advisor to promptly join us with a comforting cup of hot tea and contracts to peruse.
Whilst I imagined resting my hand on my partner’s chest (or perhaps even the bank manager’s, given today’s financial realities), surveying scenery from a window and daydreaming about where we would install our future children’s swing set (or plan for an outdoor drinking spot), that hasn’t been our experience.
Instead, we’ve been enticed with fixed housing prices, only to witness them skyrocket at auctions. It seems the cruel strategy of sparking hope only to brutally extinguish it in an attempt to solicit higher offers, has become a standard practice. It’s a frustratingly absurd situation, akin to being informed that a pack of biscuits at Lidl costs €1.50, only to be charged €10 at checkout with the casual explanation from the cashier: “it’s a swift-moving market.”
Besides these manipulative marketeers, there’s another faction preying on first-time homebuyers – the house flippers. Their handiwork is easy enough to identify. It’s they who are responsible for a house re-emerging in the market months after you’ve been outbidden, now slapped with an exorbitant price tag due to superficial improvements—like a frail kitchen or poor quality laminate flooring that you’ll have to redo yourself.
House flippers are a blight on the market, spiffing up houses on a budget and selling them for grand profits. Their burgeoning confidence, fostered by a deluge of home renovation TV shows, has caused them to see homes not as places to dwell in, but as a commodity to be acquired cheaply, spruced up for next to nothing, and then sold off for maximum gain.
I’m not addressing those who innovate by renovating neglected properties or creatively repurposing empty storefronts and underused warehouses to boost the available housing stock. I’m looking to confront a specific type of property flippers in an open debate. The ones who falsely advertise a “complete renovation” that is nothing more than a haphazard coats of paint on dated cupboards leaving blatant traces of paintbrush strands in the glossy finish.
In a house I’ve once inspected, even I – a woman who has never intentionally exercised in her adult lifespan – could effortlessly lift the faux quartz kitchen countertops straight off. A staircase painted in “quirky” hues or a showerhead substitution with a budget product from Lidl’s central aisle doesn’t equate to a “full renovation.” Yet, these blatant opportunists test our endurance on property listing websites.
What are these flippers neglecting? Abandoned sheds filled with numerous shades of grey paint cans and an irreparably painted-over ventilation fan.
Respectful flippers show decency by repairing roofs, fitting windows, investing in energy-efficient heating systems, and introducing features that enhance living standards like skylights or built-in closets. On the other hand, poor flip jobs squander a property teeming with potential, charm, and affordability for first-time homeowners by painting everything in varying shades of grey. Grey walls, grey flooring, and deep grey bathroom tiles, accentuated by unforgiving blue-white downlights, giving the home the ambiance of a gloomy social media influencer morgue scene. Resultantly, we end up with homes devoid of character and live amidst monotonous serviced apartments.
The thought of my home decor being tagged as ‘unobjectionable’ appals me. I have a deep admiration for avant-garde interiors. I’ve grown fond of all spaces that find their way onto the @uglyirishouses Instagram account- a tribute to those brave enough to disregard conventional interior design norms. I crave to see more of such design audacity.
Fancy having mural-filled loo inspired by the Sistine Chapel? Brilliant. Wall-to-wall crushed velvet? Splendid. Can’t get enough of houses designed with faux turrets, MDF ‘gothic’ archways, and faux castle ‘bricks’? I’m all for it, I’d delightfully buy a dozen. Such people embodied passion and individuality. Armed with a glue gun and a vision, they created homes leaving a lingering mark. Whereas house flippers? They often leave one with a shed of varied gray paint pots and a hopelessly painted-over extractor fan.
We share our neighbourhood with the former Sydney residence of iconic rockstar David Bowie. For nearly a decade until ’92, he made it his intermittent home, purportedly adorning it with wall-to-wall mirrors and a waist-high reflective shelf across the living room. That place undoubtedly held some euphoric evenings and possibly witnessed the use of a good amount of glass cleaner. However, its original appearance is now a mystery because as the new owners decided to strip everything off. From available photos, it appears to have been painted an unstimulating white and laid with beige rugs.
It’s high time we bring eccentricity back to our homes.