BATMANBefore my trainroom was a trainroom the 24 x 15 space was a very comfortable family room with a grand piano a few guitars on stands along with other instruments. The other end had a beautiful sitting area with the usual big screen TV Blah, Blah, Blah. I agree it was the most beautiful room in the house.
I've never seen a "Canadian" house, so I'm not familiar with room placement. Where is this "Family Room" located? Do you have a basement?
I have both a recreation room, and a family room. (We also have a traditional living room as well). Our family room is located on the main floor between the garage and kitchen/foyer. It would make a Horrible location for a train room, and would also distract from the rest of the house. The recreation room however is located in the basement, and would make a wonderful area for a nice size model railroad. My railroad however is currently housed in a spare room in the basement, because we needed space for the kids to play in the rec room. If we ever sold our house, the layout would stay until sold, like my last house.
I am in the process of selling my house. One of the first things I did was to dismantle and salvage as much as possible from the layout - track, wood, etc.
We are doing what our agent recommends. One of the benefits of having an agent to sell your house is: she is an expert on selling a house and knows what needs to be done to sell it in your market.
Enjoy
Paul
BATMANShe comes out of the room screaming " HOW COULD YOU EVER LET HIM DO THAT TO THAT BEAUTIFUL ROOM"! She carries on her rant by saying that if we ever wanted to list the house to sell it, the train would all have to come out. It was all I could do to contain myself. I reminded her who's house it actually was, and then went on to say that if she couldn't sell it with the train setup she wouldn't be the listing agent. She was most indignant and wisely shut up before things got worse.
While I agree with the other respondents who've said she's probably ultimately right-- I agree with you. Behavior like that would get you quickly ejected from my house, having nothing to do with the veracity of her statement, but rather its delivery. Personally I think you oughta publish her name and location so everybody else can avoid her. I seriously doubt that's her only trigger point and I know *I* wouldn't want to deal with her, and *would* appreciate a heads-up so I could *avoid* her.
Anyway, sorry for your troubles, and hope they all work out soon!
John
BATMANSo I ask you, did you or would you take your layout down to sell your house? I may be talked into including it in the sale of the house, but I don't think I would take it down. What if it didn't sell. Your left with a boring old family room once again.
I don't know whether or not I would dismantle my layout. That would be a big decision, especially if, as you suggest, there is a realistic possibility that the house may not sell. In which case there would be no "extra $10,000" bucks, but rather a big hole where the layout was and nothing else to show for it. On the other hand, perhaps it would be a good time to hire someone to come in and recommend and/or implement some sort of "dress-up" strategy to fix up the room, the layout, the lighting, etc-- to make the room WITH the layout look the best it can.
While I know that most people don't get off on seeing a layout, I bet they wouldn't mind so much seeing a "museum piece"-- a model layout so well presented it seems like it ought to belong in a museum. But I'm thinking more than just sticking a skirt on the layout.
Ultimately I don't how much any of that would do to help sell the house, but it probably wouldn't hurt.
(Shrug)
Who knows !?!?
I can definitely see her point. Most real estate agent look at the rooms as empty and imagine how the living space is going to look in their minds.
Personally, if I saw a layout (even if I wasn't a MRR), I would think in my mind that that person has made good use of the space. For example, I work at a furniture store and I made a delivery one time to guy's house who wanted a love seat in his basement. Once we got it down the stairs I noticed that he had an N scale layout that filled up most of the basement. He deeply apologized if the love seat wouldn't fit, but we made it fit. We spent longer talking about his layout than what it actually took to get the love seat down there.
Will
I can she her point, not many people out there would find a train layout as a selling point. People here at the site would, that is if they liked what you had done.
The train room is something like my in ground pool. Before I bought the house it was on the market for a year. The prices had been dropped several times in that year. My wife wanted a pool and I did not want a above ground one. We bought the house the same day we looked at it.
Being in sales, she should have know to kept her mouth shut.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
I AM selling my house. My layout is intact and I'll be removing it soon (I have an offer). What my agent tells me is that buyers have to be reminded to look at the house instead of my cool stuff - My house is full of my hand-made furniture, my dollhouse, my layout, and my street-custom VW. As near as I can tell, the downside to having the layout there is that it's a distraction.
Phil, I'm not a rocket scientist; they are my students.
We had already purchased our present house, and I had already removed the one module and the salvage (wreckage) of the rest of my modest around-the-spare-bedroom shelf layout, before our old house was listed. That's the only way I would have done it - moved the railroad-related chattels into the new layout space first.
I recall a discussion here on the Forum several years ago where someone was making a moderately huge layout part of the sale of a moderately huge (and hugely expensive) house. The concensus was that a serious model rail would rather design and build to his own dream than to someone else's. Non-model-railroader buyers might well be turned off by the layout, unable (like the person you cited) to see past what's there to visualize the possibilities.
My own inclination is the opposite. When I see a nice, large space in a home or commercial environment I mentally superimpose my master-plan schematic on it, seeing whether that particular serving of spaghetti would be a comfortable fit in that bowl. I don't doubt that other modelers do the same.
Back to the story. When our old house was listed, it was empty of all but minimum furniture (we were still living in it) and had been thoroughly cleaned and all deferred maintenance taken care of. It sold in five weeks for more than we expected to get for it, so we must have done something right.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - in a double garage)
I used to work with a guy who said, "The Customer isn't always right. But, the Customer is always the Customer."
My train room is also the family room. It's a nice, large, comfortable space, but not the showpiece of the house. (If it had been the showpiece of the house, it still would be, and I wouldn't have a trainroom.)
As insensitive as this agent was, my guess is she was right. Most house buyers are sold very early on. One developer I know puts a lot of effort into making a perfect front porch for just that reason. If you make a good enough first impression, then the other things get overlooked. Now, remembering that most Americans are not model railroaders, a layout is not a plus. In fact, it's probably a minus, like a gym setup in the living room or a large, walk-in bedroom closet stuffed with power tools.
Would I take down my layout just to sell the house? Well, considering that if I were selling the house, I'd have to take it down anyway, yes. But think of it this way: Would you take down your layout for ten thousand dollars? That might be the difference between the offer from the buyer who really wants that showpiece room, and the other buyer who just wants a place to live.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
simon1966I suspect that for the vast majority of the house buying public a room filled with benchwork would not be seen as an attractive addition to the home. Many would see it as a major hassle to remove and dispose of. A former collegue of mine in Michigan negotiated down the price of a home he was buying because of a basement filling model railroad. He did not want it, and got the owner to lower the price if he agreed to accept it left in place and dispose of it after the sale.
I suspect that for the vast majority of the house buying public a room filled with benchwork would not be seen as an attractive addition to the home. Many would see it as a major hassle to remove and dispose of.
A former collegue of mine in Michigan negotiated down the price of a home he was buying because of a basement filling model railroad. He did not want it, and got the owner to lower the price if he agreed to accept it left in place and dispose of it after the sale.
I agree, but mine is freestanding and though not portable is movable. Once removed the room is clean and empty. I will be taking it with me if at all possible if I ever move.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
Before my trainroom was a trainroom the 24 x 15 space was a very comfortable family room with a grand piano a few guitars on stands along with other instruments. The other end had a beautiful sitting area with the usual big screen TV Blah, Blah, Blah. I agree it was the most beautiful room in the house.
An acquaintance of ours comes over who is a real estate agent. She saw the room before it was improved and made into a train room about three years ago. Back then she said that this room should be in a magazine, it's perfect. Blah, Blah, Blah.
She walks into it now and just about passes out. Here I am thinking she must really be impressed with the layout so far . Yeah right. She comes out of the room screaming " HOW COULD YOU EVER LET HIM DO THAT TO THAT BEAUTIFUL ROOM"! She carries on her rant by saying that if we ever wanted to list the house to sell it, the train would all have to come out. It was all I could do to contain myself. I reminded her who's house it actually was, and then went on to say that if she couldn't sell it with the train setup she wouldn't be the listing agent. She was most indignant and wisely shut up before things got worse.
Now we are not planning a move at this time, but it got me thinking. I don't think I would ever take the layout down to sell the house. If buyers can't see past it, oh well.
That hag will never get the job of selling my house for me, that's for darn sure.
So I ask you, did you or would you take your layout down to sell your house? I may be talked into including it in the sale of the house, but I don't think I would take it down. What if it didn't sell. Your left with a boring old family room once again.
Thanks for listening.....