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It was our realtor who made the suggestion about the elevator because almost all the lookers said they wanted a downstairs master. (When we bought this house neither of us had ever lived in a two-story house so we were too stupid to know what problems it could cause.)
Most people who want a first-floor master bedroom have older kids and want their bedroom away from the kids' bedrooms.
Many, many, many people live in two-story homes without first-floor master bedrooms and without elevators. You just haven't found the right buyer yet.
My advice is to talk to other, successful realtors. I can't imagine buying a house that has an elevator! Just another thing to maintain.
But you could put in a one of those stairlifts to use in your stairs. That would be more appealing to the average homeowner.
We also had great difficulties selling our house. We tried for 2 years 2007-2008 and two more, 2011 and 2012 before we finally did sell. We were on 3 acres with well and septic and it appears that the market for that sort of property had dried up along with the effects of the recession. We did redecorate a couple of bedrooms during the time we weren't selling, and we bought furniture for ourselves. But the difference for us was finding a super realtor. it took three tries. Our house had two levels, ground floor, and below grade. The buyers were older, not retired, but certainly not young. We were so surprised! We assumed any buyer interested in our house would be somewhat young and vigorous.
I will say that we sold our house shortly after reducing our price. If your house is in good condition, updated kitchen and baths, then price will sell it. And having a good realtor.
But I wouldn't put in an elevator. And if your realtor was serious when he or she suggested it, I'd question the judgement of that person.
I'm also not understanding the realtors overall advice- the direction you have been pushed in. If the upstairs master was an issue, why did they have you add an upstairs study & downstairs dining room. Unless that dining room was 9x9 I would imagine opening a wall or adding a bump out would hace sufficed in making it more spacious. And most people who want the downstairs master would want the study on the same floor. Simply adding the first floor master + bath would have given more value than a two story addition to replace rooms that are not important to many buyers.
I sold a condo as the market crashed and it was brutal. I was carrying a mortgage on it and my house since before the crash condos in my area stayed on market for 6-8 weeks tops. So I was in no panic to sell before buying since the overlap made the move and a couple of adjustments to the house less intrusive. At any rate the answer to my problem ended up being not to improve/chase the ideal/throw buyer incentives at the problem but to cut the price to be in line with lesser properties in the complex. At which point I sold & several of those did not. Hard lesson to learn because the market was going down for a year!
I'd find out who sells the most volume in your particular area of town or with the particular type of property you have and bring them in. When they first look at the property ask for not only the fair market value they all give but how you are stacking up to comps.
get advice from other realtors and then maybe you can do that stained glass look or treat the former window areas like an actual window with a painted outdoors scene and curtains/drapes, if you still go through with adding the elevator.
Could you hang some small, framed, black & white pictures within the window panes?
Maybe hang them with a satin or sheer metallic ribbon? This could make for a very interesting display of family photos or artwork.
If you are going in the direction of a stained glass window, keep in mind there are all kinds of designs and it is really up to personal taste which makes selling even harder. That said, you could always have a lighted stained glass window where the original windows were and then with the flip of a switch, voila, light from that direction and design!
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