During my current house hunt I keep on coming across houses which are best referred to as “Instagram houses,” in that the previous owners have poured a lot of money into them to make them perfect for Instagram instead of being a comfortable place to live.
Some of the listings have even been so blatant as to say “live the life of your Instagram dreams.”
Anyway it’s a thing to watch out for. I almost ended up buying one without realizing a MAJOR flaw: NO REFRIGERATOR
Like, there was a fridge but it was basically a fancy drawer fridge which is an expensive version of a tiny dorm fridge. Sure it looks cute and clean but it also means you have nowhere to put actual food. They hold like a bottle of ketchup and a six-pack.
And the home had nowhere to reasonably put an actual fridge.
I don’t know if the previous owners actually lived with such a dysfunctional kitchen or if it was a desperate pre-sale remodel. It felt like the latter.
A red flag to watch out for: a kitchen sink with a drain board. They look charming and fancy but have no practical purpose and waste a lot of space. And a LOT of the Instagram homes seem to have them.
Someone else ended up buying the house approximately thirty minutes after I backed out so it all worked out for the sellers, and the buyers are gonna have a fun time when they realize how messed up the kitchen is.
@fluffy I have never been on Instagram, can you share some screenshots of this style of home and what they’re trying to emulate?
@warriorstar you’ll know it when you see it. Previous generations would have called it a “better homes and gardens” kitchen. It’s designed to look trendy and cool rather than to be functional.
Anyway here’s photos of the specific kitchen I noped out of.
@fluffy Um, yeow.
Like, our house has nowhere to reasonably put a dishwasher, but it was built in 1928 so that's fair. And it has a spot for the roll-away portable dishwasher. A usable fridge, though, that's ... something's gone wrong if you're overlooking *that*.
So anyway I wonder how many totally adequate homes are being Instagram-remodeled and made useless and overpriced for the sake of cynical quick sales. It feels like a huge number of the ones which stick around on the Seattle market are like that, anyway.