Lipstick on a Pig

Let’s talk about lipstick on a pig.

I see buyers fall in love with pretty houses all the time. Staged beautifully. Photographed perfectly. Looks incredible on the listing.

And then nothing else works.

Wrong neighborhood. Wrong block. Wrong size. Wrong everything — except the finishes.

Here’s the truth: a beautiful house in the wrong location, on the wrong block, with the wrong footprint is lipstick on a pig. It might be someone else’s dream home. But it’s not yours.

And no amount of renovation is going to fix that.

The good news is that the opposite is also true.

There’s a house on the market right now that nobody wants. Wrong paint. Dated kitchen. Carpet that belongs in 1987. Maybe a bathroom that makes you wince. You walk through it and your first instinct is to keep walking.

But here’s what I want you to look at instead.

The block is perfect. The size is right. The view out the back window? Exactly what you’ve been looking for.

That house? That might be your dream home. You just can’t see it yet.

This is what I call the Immutable Attributes framework.

Some things about a property can be changed. Paint. Floors. Kitchens. Bathrooms. Layouts, sometimes. These are all fixable.

Some things cannot.

Waterfront is waterfront. You only have so many homes facing the water. A specific school district, a particular block, proximity to your office or your family — those are hard lines. The width of a townhouse, the buildable square footage, the ceiling heights — you can’t manufacture those after the fact.

If the house has the right immutable attributes — the right size, the right block, the right view — but it’s ugly? You can always make it pretty again.

If it’s pretty but nothing else works? You’re stuck.

Get clear on your must-haves. Lock into what cannot be changed. Everything else is just renovation.

Right now in Brooklyn, the market is tightening fast.

Bidding wars. Homes going well over asking. Inventory that isn’t keeping up with demand.

If you’re waiting for the perfect house to appear at the perfect price in perfect condition — you might be waiting a long time. And while you wait, the market keeps moving.

I’m currently working with two sets of clients who did exactly this. Both walked into houses that needed work. Both saw past the cosmetics and locked into the immutable attributes — the right size, the right block, the right views. Both are planning renovations. Neither blinked.

Because they knew something: you can fix ugly. You can’t fix location.

And then there’s a second type of buyer I want to talk to.

Maybe you can’t afford your dream home yet. Maybe the neighborhood you really want is out of reach right now. That’s okay.

But here’s what I see people miss: the point isn’t to buy your forever home on the first try. The point is to get in the game.

Buy something you can afford. Something in the right direction. Something where the math works for you. Build equity. Ride the wave. Use that foundation to get to the next house — and the one after that.

The ugly house you can afford today might be the fastest path to the dream house you want tomorrow.

Done is better than perfect.

I’ve walked through finished homes with past clients — people who bought the ugly house, did the work, and came out the other side. The feeling of standing in a space that is immaculate, perfectly customized, exactly what they envisioned?

That’s what they actually bought when they made the offer on that dated, carpeted, wince-inducing house.

They just had to be willing to see past what it was to what it could be.

The houses that check every box on paper are the ones everyone is fighting over. The ones that need work? Those are where the opportunity lives — if you know what you’re looking for.

Get clear on what cannot be changed. Be honest about what can.

And stop letting ugly stop you.

What’s the one thing that’s been stopping you from pulling the trigger on a property? Drop it in the comments — I’d love to hear where you’re getting stuck.