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Our neighbor just spent $180,000 remodeling her 1962 home. The home is valued at about $500,000. Our neighbor is almost 70 and not in the best health. She took out a loan to do this work on a home that was paid off. She intends to leave the home to her friends daughter. The friends daughter will more than likely sell the home. Now instead of leaving her a paid off home she will leave her a home with a reverse mortgage.
This is off topic for the OP but..
I applaud your neighbor! She gets to live in her brand spanking new remodeled home and enjoy it. I don't really understand why you think she should live in her run down dated house just to leave a paid off house to her friends daughter.
Wait. Did the OP say that the bathrooms have carpet in them? I have never heard of anyone putting carpet in a bathroom.
As far as what I would do:
Clean and minor repairs. Nothing else. If the landscaping needs to be cleared then do that. Mostly time and as little money as possible.
Do the littlest things and sell it as is.
This is Freebird the OP - sadly yes, you are correct that the bathrooms have carpet. I can't imagine. When I lived there so long ago, the 1" tile floors were there, uncovered - just with throw rugs. At some point after I moved out when they had the carpet replaced, they asked the installers to run it in the bathrooms too.
The carpet really should be pulled out throughout the house because of the original hardwood underneath it - but if mom stonewalls me on that then at the very minimum it has to come out of both bathrooms.
With the market the way it is now, I'm thinking as you are - especially with what looks like a lack of cooperation from mom and my wish to get back home in a reasonable amount of time. Get it super clean and repair anything that needs it. The landscaping is clean and neat - sort of sparse in front but the lawn is in really good shape, nice and green.
And I still think the drapes all need to come out because of the dust and the age of them and because it makes it so very dark inside when buyers come through. With nobody living there to turn on lights and open all of the drapes to get it ready to sell, it will be one of the worst first impressions inside that I could imagine.
I wish I knew in this market if it would make a major difference in price to do everything I was originally planning to do - or if it will sell regardless and maybe better to get it listed sooner while there is virtually no inventory whatsoever.
This is off topic for the OP but..
I applaud your neighbor! She gets to live in her brand spanking new remodeled home and enjoy it. I don't really understand why you think she should live in her run down dated house just to leave a paid off house to her friends daughter.
LOL, Well, after spending all that money on the remodel the home looks the same as it did before. The reason for the remodel was because someone claimed to find mold in one of her bathrooms. She brought in a contractor to fix the mold. He talked her into ripping out both bathrooms and putting in new toilets, tub, and new shower in the other bathroom. New cabinets but they look similar to the old cabinets. After that he talked her into replacing the kitchen with a new kitchen. Her kitchen was in awesome shape before they replaced the cabinets in there. She did get a new tile floor that was different. Then because they were replacing the kitchen they talked her into a complete rewire of the electrical in the home. Chances are it needed to be rewired as it was all original. They neglected to re-pipe the home, something that it did need to have done.
Additional things that were done, new windows, new slider door, and repainted the home the same color as it had been before. They also added in a CCTV system that she can watch on her computer, that she does not have. She could also bring up the video on her smart phone that she has never owned. The contractor did not replace the doors or door hardware.
basically the home, after spending all that money on it, looks 90% the same as before she started the project. Things that they should have done was replace the drain lines. In our area many of the homes have had the kitchen drain line fail and most people reroute that another way. Our drain lines are under the slab so they are hard to get to.
She asked me and a few other people if we thought that she had been ripped off. Everyone said yes.
I told another contractor that I work with about the job and he said that the work should have cost maybe $10,000 for the bathroom to clear up the mold and put it back into service. That is all she had originally wanted to do. The contractor that she used told her all about reverse mortgages and how she would never have to pay the money back. Then he helped her spend the money.
The contractor did some great things to the home. Things that needed to be done.
Still, lets look at it this way. Lets say that she had only redone the bathroom. Spent the $10,000 or lets say that it had cost her $20,000 for the bathroom. That was money she could have covered without the loan. The home would have no debt attached to it.
Childhood friend sold her parents home in Cupertino California... they bought it new for 27k in 1958...
Home was original except for Bronze Double Pane windows circa 1985... and normal maintenance... painting, 15 year old roof... etc.
She paid a janitorial company to do a thorough clean... make certain nothing was left behind and had the gardener do a extra trim...
Spent $1500 total and all done in 3 days.
Put the home on the market for 1.3M and with multiple overbids escrow closed 22 days later...
No repairs, no concessions... nothing except cleaning and trimming on on original 2100 square feet split level 3 bedroom 2.5 bath city lot...
The buyers didn't even move in as they had their contractors set to go when Escrow closed... new high end Kitchen, Baths, Windows, HVAC and Roof... guess they were going to spend maybe another 200K on it to move in... maybe into it 1.6M +/-
They only wanted Cupertino for schools and proximity to Apple.
My parents have the same home from the same builder in Oakland CA and it cost 29k in 1958 and had a market value of 500k...
Location is the most important factor when it comes to price...
Childhood friend sold her parents home in Cupertino California... they bought it new for 27k in 1958...
Home was original except for Bronze Double Pane windows circa 1985... and normal maintenance... painting, 15 year old roof... etc.
She paid a janitorial company to do a thorough clean... make certain nothing was left behind and had the gardener do a extra trim...
Spent $1500 total and all done in 3 days.
Put the home on the market for 1.3M and with multiple overbids escrow closed 22 days later...
No repairs, no concessions... nothing except cleaning and trimming on on original 2100 square feet split level 3 bedroom 2.5 bath city lot...
The buyers didn't even move in as they had their contractors set to go when Escrow closed... new high end Kitchen, Baths, Windows, HVAC and Roof... guess they were going to spend maybe another 200K on it to move in... maybe into it 1.6M +/-
They only wanted Cupertino for schools and proximity to Apple.
My parents have the same home from the same builder in Oakland CA and it cost 29k in 1958 and had a market value of 500k...
Location is the most important factor when it comes to price...
It is the highlighting the first principal in Real Estate and that is location is Paramount...
Renovating to sell... especially in the hopes of a better net are often ill advised and can be prove costly to those inexperienced... common problems are paying too much for the work, delaying the sale, complications uncovered that lead to more work or changes not to the future buyers taste.
Clean and tidy is the almost always the safe way to proceed... in my experience as location will dictate and location is a given...
My Cupertino friend seriously considered kitchen and bath upgrades... which we talked in depth about and her decision was to pass with a possible later date option if needed.
Last edited by Ultrarunner; 10-27-2017 at 07:21 PM..
Childhood friend sold her parents home in Cupertino California... they bought it new for 27k in 1958...
Home was original except for Bronze Double Pane windows circa 1985... and normal maintenance... painting, 15 year old roof... etc.
She paid a janitorial company to do a thorough clean... make certain nothing was left behind and had the gardener do a extra trim...
Spent $1500 total and all done in 3 days.
Put the home on the market for 1.3M and with multiple overbids escrow closed 22 days later...
No repairs, no concessions... nothing except cleaning and trimming on on original 2100 square feet split level 3 bedroom 2.5 bath city lot...
The buyers didn't even move in as they had their contractors set to go when Escrow closed... new high end Kitchen, Baths, Windows, HVAC and Roof... guess they were going to spend maybe another 200K on it to move in... maybe into it 1.6M +/-
They only wanted Cupertino for schools and proximity to Apple.
My parents have the same home from the same builder in Oakland CA and it cost 29k in 1958 and had a market value of 500k...
Location is the most important factor when it comes to price...
I wish my parents' house was in Los Angeles and not in Florida. . .even better if it was in Cupertino, for sure.
It would be amazing if we could just make it sparkling clean and call it good and someone would snap it up. They've kept up with the maintenance really well except for the deck in the backyard - it was built in 1980 and has been pressure washed quite a few times but not lately - now some boards are warped and the whole thing is slippery.
Thinking about location for their area - I think it's really good but who knows what type of buyer it will attract.
There is public elementary school, middle school, high school as well as a K-12 private school - within a mile and a half of the property.
It is 2 miles from the on ramps/off ramps of I-95 to downtown - 1.2 miles in the other direction to the bridge expressway to downtown - 2.5 miles in yet another direction to the expressway out to the beaches and to a major shopping venue.
If we follow the advice on this thread and then price it right I know it will sell - it would be so great if we could get multiple offers (if we could do enough to make it attractive to draw multiple offers). Definitely no kitchen and bath renovations - we are leaving it retro and focusing on exposing the original hardwood and tile - maybe some painting - definitely pressure washing the driveway and sidewalk. The landscaping is in good shape and the grass is green and healthy.
And the deck - that would probably be the biggest expense if we end up redoing it.
I leave on Sunday to go to Florida and start working on the house - first priority is to finish boxing and move everything out of it - and then go from there as far as what to do (besides deep cleaning with professional help) to make it ready to list.
Walkthrough with contractor and agent on the day after I arrive, so we can make a plan based on their recommendations and go to it.
And there is literally no inventory for single family residences in their area - some condominiums and one foreclosure that our agent said is trashed.
So here's hoping !
That sounds promising! I wouldn't re-do the deck, just fix it enough to not be unsafe, an eyesore, or a suggestion of poor maintenance throughout the house. I don't know where you are but here, even an existing deck that needs replacing is better than none at all... because putting in a deck requires a permit and inspector and fixing one does not.
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