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I have done my share of house flipping so I feel I have a handle on what buyers are saying. I also believe most Realtors will agree with me here.
With the huge glut of homes on the market now, buyers are looking for a house that is a red ribbon deal. A home in pristine condition. Todays buyers dont even want to buy a can of paint. If they dont like the colors in the house, even if they like everything else, they move on to the other 20,000 active and available homes.
They want to look at the toilet and tub and it has to look like it has not been used. They will open the oven door and if it is not pristine clean they will move on. Even the shower curtian must smell fresh like the day you opened the package and commented how bad it smelled.
Does this seem a bit too fussy? Well that is quite the typical home buyer out there. They want to get the key, move in thier furniture and sit down and watch TV and cook. That is how fussy buyers are now.
Should you upgrade? You betcha. If you dont then your neighbor who has upgrades will get the buyers deposit and you will not.
I agree or you have to sell your home as a fixer upper, way below market price.
By the way it is even fun to make your home nice, you can enjoy it and so does a buyer.
Yes, I too am a buyer now ,so I will adress the OP.
To me a house built in 1998 is only 10 years old and thus should be in quite good shape yet.
You mentioned--exterior paint--and that sent a "red flag" up.
If I was buying a house only 10 years old that didn't have permanent siding I would immediately drop it from my list,as completely painting a house every 10 years for the rest of my life is not gonna be on my list.
I don't mean this to be critical, but a 10 year old house w/0 permanent siding is gonna have to be priced at a discount cuz I don't I am the only buyer who will eliminate a wood siding house.
Like threeactingup, I am a real-life real-world prospective buyer. Just have not bought into the real estate economic wreck yet this week, but shopping hard and ready on the sideline.
Our experience is that is hard to find anything is not been home-hacked or "updated" as folks more charitably put it. If you want to sell to us, or thousands of others like us -- do not screw with it. List "as is," post a price, and say negotiable. Go live your life and make your money how you earn it, and do not screw with the house.
From my personal perspective, I trend towards a preference to do my own updating as opposed to buying someone else's ideas.
Here is a link to an active thread with advise from a recent buyer for sellers:
I see and hear a lot more of that kind of mind set than your or mine.
Sure those are the folks doing the talking. But bad advice followed is worse than no advice, at all. And most of those who are giivinig that advice are not even buyers or capable of being buyers because they tied up in the same mess themselves.
But did you catch the (not intended) point of that post you linked? While the buyer may have liked this or that -- it made NO DIFFERENCE -- he bought it anyway, and just did whining afterwards.
On the other hand, folks might spend a month or two or three, and thousands getting the place up to some make believe standards having never talked to the intended buyer about what they may want. That seems as silly as ordering for someone else at a restaurant. Meanwhile the house prices are on fire downward.
If these folks sitting on these glut houses do not turn them over to some greater fool or buyer in the next few months, they risk the real bottom falling out when the big slug of ARM resets hit in March through June. Houses may be hard to even give away after that point.
Finally do you see who is giving the typical advice to the totally screwed sellers on here? In general it is NOT buyers or even folks capable of being buyers. Instead it is real estate types and flippers -- the same folks who have created the glut of now unsold and unsale-able houses. Yeah. Those are the folks I would want to be listening to.
On another thread a potential buyer posted this about staging:
I didn't realize how important this was until I started looking! I mean, I thought it was sort of exaggerated, that most people could look past other people's stuff. But Wednesday I looked at a house with Harley Davidson stuff everywhere, a smelly dog sniffing us the whole time, dirty dishes in the sink, and a political news show on the tv. They were making that poor dog listen to politics all day! No wonder he was mopey. Anyway, I couldn't get out of that place fast enough. I couldn't tell you what the back yard looked like because I ran out the front door too quickly.
Some of the buyers on here are able to look past the updating needs on a home. Yes, there are those buyers out there. Many buyers are not like that though. Regardless of what you do, buyers are looking for deals. They are looking for the best fixer, or the best ready to go home, at the best price. Your home has to be the best at both of those to sell.
On another thread a potential buyer posted this about staging:
I didn't realize how important this was until I started looking! I mean, I thought it was sort of exaggerated, that most people could look past other people's stuff. But Wednesday I looked at a house with Harley Davidson stuff everywhere, a smelly dog sniffing us the whole time, dirty dishes in the sink, and a political news show on the tv. They were making that poor dog listen to politics all day! No wonder he was mopey. Anyway, I couldn't get out of that place fast enough. I couldn't tell you what the back yard looked like because I ran out the front door too quickly.
Some of the buyers on here are able to look past the updating needs on a home. Yes, there are those buyers out there. Many buyers are not like that though. Regardless of what you do, buyers are looking for deals. They are looking for the best fixer, or the best ready to go home, at the best price. Your home has to be the best at both of those to sell.
ookkkaaaayyyy. . . .
dunno if you know the difference between "remove trash" and "remodel-update" (the topic of thread).
If you all are in real estate, I would sort of hope so, but if the two are confusing, here goes . . .
Trash:
Harley Davidson stuff everywhere = Trash.
A smelly dog sniffing us = Trash.
Dirty dishes in the sink = Trash.
Political news show on the tv = Trash.
It takes one day and not much money to clean-out/throw-out trash.
Real deal on that was the real estate agent was an idiot for showing it in that condition.
Now consider the difference --
Update / Remodel:
Paint, carpet, appliances, countertops, and all the rest of the moron-a-thon of flip-dips and HGTV. (see the difference between that and "throw out trash")
These are things that cost time (weeks or months) and money (often in thousands) from the already strapped seller while the price is dropping on the overall market. While the loss could be bad now, the loss could be worse from dumping more money in and getting the place (not) sold with delays.
ahhh...the smell of condescension. What forum would be complete without it?
Well, sorry on that.
I am just a loss as to why the same bad advice that drove the market into the mess it is still the same preached. It all stopped "working" sometime late last Summer, did it not?
Why not "update - remodel" the advice to sellers in a (VERY) changed market?
The hill just gets steeper ahead on this same path.
Actually the advice is different. In the hot market, I told my sellers to do nothing but clean it well. I didn't stage it or tell them to make a lot of changes. In Salem during a hot market we were selling 85% of what was listed on the market. We are now selling 50%. Our normal is 60-65%.
I don't think updating a house drove the market into its current mess. There are a multitude of factors that made that occur.
The OP is asking for a 1998 house, what makes the most sense. Just watching my buyer's reactions to homes, it is my opinion that most people want the basics taken care of. Most buyers don't want to take the time to refinish their hardwoods. They want it done already. They want nice clean carpet. They just want to paint and move in.
At least here in Salem, OR which is only down about 10-15%, the price that the sellers would have to drop their price to, in order to solicit the sale, would be so low it would make more sense to just do the work. We're not talking about major remodeling here. There is so much inventory, that buyers have the time to be really picky.
The suggestions by the agents here are to get sellers to take into consideration that there is serious competition out there, and the home has to be as close to pristine as possible. If you can't do that, then you need to drop the price to reflect it and make it a good deal. Many sellers are just unwilling to do that. As a result, many sellers are continuing to ride the market down.
The only way to know what makes the most sense is to see what comparable homes look like. You need to be in as good a shape or better to get the sale, or be such a good deal that it doesn't matter. It just depends on what the OP can stomach.
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