It seems the world’s gone mad for granite or anything that resembles the hard rock and if your house doesn’t have large slabs of it in the kitchen you may as well figure on living there forever because it won’t sell. 

When we tried to sell our beautiful home three years ago it sat on the market for almost four months because the sheep watching too much HGTV whined it had no granite. Oh, the kitchen counters were clean, flawless and decent looking butcher block but the lookie-loos with rocks in their head demanded rock over the cupboards. 

Even our agent tut-tutted to us we had made a fatal mistake not shelling out thousands of dollars to “update” our kitchen. It was plenty up to date…it just wasn’t up to the current fad hawked incessantly by the producers of House Hunters and other similar programs that completely stage the fake “surprise endings” where the couples “reveal” their decision that had already been made before they rolled one frame of video. 

Ya gotta have granite, and a certain kind of ceiling, and don’t even get me started about hardwood floors. I love that. The couple whines they must have hard wood floors. What’s the first thing people do when they move into a place with hard wood floors? They cover most of it with area rugs and other bits of carpeting! 

What else? Oh…the shows say appliances must…MUST be stainless steel. Another useless feature. Stainless steel isn’t magnetic, yet it attracts every sort of smudge, nose and fingerprint, which means you spend half your day wiping the damn things, when you should be using that valuable time to raid the fridge for beers and fatty snacks. For awhile, appliance makers built the stuff with a sort of textured material that resisted all the things I mentioned above. No..that was too effective, and probably cost a lot less than smudgy stainless steel. 

You see, that’s the other angle. All these useless “must haves” cost a bundle compared to more practical and budget-friendly surfaces. 

We’re in the process of selling a small condo our daughter and partner lived in for six years. Knowing the game, we replaced the carpeting on the first floor with vinyl planking that looks a lot like wood, but is much easier to maintain. The upstairs and finished basement are fully carpeted and are cozy as hell and the entire place has a fresh coat of pain. But NFW we were replacing the perfectly fine laminate counters in the small, galley kitchen. There’s nothing wrong with them and they look pretty damn good. Most importantly, like granite…they’re flat. 

Of course, when discussing the listing price our selling agent fawns over all the stuff we did to make the place attractive, then suddenly her face drops and in a scolding tone informs us, “you could ask so much more…if only you’d put in granite.”  

Not gonna happen. It’s just a matter of principle now–digging in against an overpriced, overhyped igneous intrusion. 

UPDATE 12/23: The condo sold in one day after only two showings. Someone obviously appreciates luscious green laminate!