Exactly. "Is it clean and tidy right now" is a decent proxy for "Has this been properly taken care of in the past"
Obviously it's not infallible. But even if the owner only cleaned their stuff now that they are selling it that still tells you they are the type of person to take action where it's beneficial
I think it's more of a negative indicator. It's like turning up to a job interview wearing dirty clothes - unless you're a savant it's probably indicative that you don't give a shit or have some sort of other problems in life. But wearing clean clothes doesn't give you points because it's assumed to be the norm in that setting.
Right. Clean house on the market means almost nothing.
Gross house means almost certainly not maintained.
> "Is it clean and tidy right now" is a decent proxy for "Has this been properly taken care of in the past"
I don't think so, esp at selling time, I definitely expect that the owner has just made it look pristine. But the opposite is definitely true: if you can't even bother making it look clean and tidy when trying to sell, I'm pretty sure you've not taken care of it in the past!