What Makes a Home Look Older?

I don’t know why, but Apartment Therapy says “DO NOT DO THIS, INSTANTLY YOUR HOME LOOKS OLD!” I’m a complete sucker when you say it. article. Let’s talk about it, readers – if you’ve shopped for a home lately, what trends and features do you absolutely hate seeing in a home? If you bought a “fixer top” or bargained for a home with an outdated trend, how did you deal with it? (If you sold a home that had one of these deal-breakers, did you try to get it settled before you put it on the market – or did you sell the home for whatever price you could get so the buyer could do what he wanted?

{related: tips and tricks for buying a house}

I remember Looking to buy a studio apartment in NYC in the mid-2000s. The one with the layout and location I loved had a big problem: the previous owner had glued mirrors to most of the walls of the house. (I still bid a few times and lost many times. Sigh.)

A few years later, when my husband and I wanted to buy an apartment, we seriously considered an apartment we call the “Miami Vice apartment” because stacked glass blocks were a big feature in the kitchen and living room.

We went to another apartment with some strange features – an unusual layout with lots of cross walls painted in super dark colours. But those were the features we thought we’d tackle, so we got this feature and were really happy we did.

{related: how to decorate your first real apartment}

(Something that bothered us from the start, I wish we could get over it: Orangey hardwood flooring. It would be ideal to renovate or replace it before moving in, but I didn’t think of it that way at the time. Of course, it’s a huge pain to make the floor once we’re in…)

{related: First things to do when buying a house}

I know I’ve seen friends looking for homes in the suburbs and complaining about outdated kitchens, an unfashionable color of wood throughout the house, wallpaper everywhere, bathroom rugs and more.

What are some of your biggest pet ordeals in apartments and homes? If you’ve been looking to buy or sell lately, what did you perceive as the biggest deal breaker?

(Side question: what are your favorite sources for real estate content? I’m addicted Zillow has gone crazy I love playing the “which flat did they get” game on Instagram and the NYT. I also like to drool WSJ real estate division. And of course, Apartment Therapy I’ve loved in the past Real Estate Huntersand Property Brothers It was literally the only thing I watched on one of my maternity leave.)

Stock photo via Pexels / RODNAE Productions.