Remodel before you sell your home?
Concerned about selling your home, when your honey-do list isn’t done? In a buyer’s market, where the competition is stiff, I suggest you should do a little homework by looking at the neighborhood and looking to see what your neighbors have been doing. The question to ask yourself is: will the average purchaser for your type of home consider that particular improvement on the property after they own it. For example, you have single pane windows with storms throughout. Most buyers will look at the old windows, and say, they need replacement since they are not thermal pane windows. This might be an improvement you may want to consider especially if 70% of the homes have already completed the replacement windows. Consequently,window replacement has become normal in the neighborhood.
Are you thinking you may need to remodel or improve your home before you put the house on the market? You are not alone with those thoughts, but most Realtors and contractors will tell you to use some caution, especially in our market decline in the past few years. Most home improvements do not return the full amount it may require for you to upgrade, however some conservative improvements may actually make you a greater return on value. Listed below are my picks for easy fixes to update your home for little dollars, but an investment of your labor or time:
- Select a neutral canvas. I advise my clients to look at the Pottery Barn examples of color which are so popular with buyers today.This not only includes your walls, but look at the flooring. Do you have various colors of carpet or flooring in your home? I think it’s better to have 1 neutral color and best, if you have hardwood flooring, to remove the carpet and refinish the floors in one stain.
- Remove the wallpaper from decades ago and have the interior painted. Consider your room features, you may want to highlight one wall to draw the buyer's eyes to that feature.
- Walk around the house, if you have trim that’s peeling, or a door that could use a coat of paint, do it. Those items you don’t repair or maintain shout to the buyer that there is a cost involved in fixing it, and that will lower your price during negotiations.
- Light fixtures can be very inexpensive, but it will make a huge “updated” improvement to the buyer.
- Back to the doors, consider getting a new front door (you could have an incentive from the government for more energy efficiency too) and new storm door for you upgrade especially good for those that need some additional curb appeal or again it has become normal for homes in your neighborhood to have the more efficient doors and storms.
Hopefully, this short list will help your decision making process. If not, my extensive knowledge in the market of what others homes are preparing, might be of value to you, before you start the projects, your “honey-do” list or improvement list before you spend the time and energy doing it.
