Selling our house: advertise the dog-friendly features or not mention?

[Anonymous]

No, a doggie door would be a negative for me, something I have to repair.

And a someone with serious pet allergies, I'm not sure I'd even want to come look at the house if I knew dogs lived there. If I didn't know and I was already there to look at it, I'd go ahead and go inside.

The house we live in now was occupied by a large dog and 2 cats, but we didn't know that before we came to look at it, and once we were there, we decided it was worth looking at. We fell in love with the house, but we did have to redo all the hardwoods (dog scratch marks), get all the carpets deep cleaned before we moved in, and get rid of the doggie door in the back.

Features like a fenced yard speak for themselves - don't advertise them as being great for dogs.

[Anonymous]

Not only would I not mention dog friendly, I think you need to consider getting rid of the dog door before selling. We have a dog and love it dearly, but before we adopted it, we had to sign an agreement not to use a dog door. So there is some fringe of dog lovers out there that thinks dog-doors are bad (I'm not saying they are, just pointed out that the dog door will most likely be more of a deterrant than an attraction).

I'm mention the ramp and the fenced in yard.

I would not mention pets at all. While I love my dog, I'd assume the house smelled. I'd assume a pet-friendly house = crazy cat lady.

[Anonymous]

I love dogs and own a dog, but I would get rid of a dog door before I moved into a house. You need to make your house look like no dog has even stepped inside. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone. You confirmed what I was thinking. I understand your points. We even moved out of the house to sell it. I hated looking at houses that were lived in, so that influenced us. There wasn't much to do to erase signs of the dog, but we did do a few things. I just didn't know how to approach the other things. I'll put thought into replacing the dog door with a regular door--easy enough to do, doesn't cost all that much, and we could leave the door with the dog door in it in the garage if someone wants to be able to use that.