Which renovations are a smart investment before selling? (Boston, Reading: credit, loans)

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

Personally, I'm a golden rule kind of guy and I tend to treat people how I want to be treated and if I handed someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for their house I'd be pretty miffed if the white cabinets started peeling a year later.

Yup. Kinda like how we purchased our house with a brand spanking new tile Kitchen floor (was mentioned in the listing) only to have it start cracking in 3'x5' cement board sized grids a year after moving in.

Now we have to redo it, again. In fact, it's blowing up into an entire new Kitchen, so I kinda wish the owner just left the old kitchen alone and knocked $10K off the asking price.

They also redid both bathrooms prior to the sale. A month after moving in, I gutted one because they had horrible taste.

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

I remember last year I was in a house in Framingham with a client and the homeowner had painted the original cabinets from the '50s gray. You could see the roller marks on the cabinet doors so clearly a DIY job.

Using a roller shows someone who doesn't know what they are doing. You might use a roller to apply primer but the final coat would be applied with a high quality brush. And the cabinets would need to be sanded down at least a couple times during the process.

[Remy11]

I didn’t read through all of the comments but when we were selling our previous home, our agent told us to paint the cabinets white and he could list the house for 20k more. This was back in 2016, so I’m sure that number is much higher now. He said the kitchen is perceived as more modern with white cabinets.

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

Using a roller shows someone who doesn't know what they are doing. You might use a roller to apply primer but the final coat would be applied with a high quality brush. And the cabinets would need to be sanded down at least a couple times during the process.

Clearly that person had no idea what they were doing. Based on the 1,000's upon 1,000's of homes I've been in, I can say without a doubt that a large percentage of DIY'ers have no idea what they're doing when it comes to home improvements and there are also a decent amount of "professionals" who don't do good work as well.

I've seen plenty of cabinets with either brush and roller marks so I'm not sure using a brush is 100% the solution. Ideally the finish should be sprayed on the cabinets as that will give it the most "factory finish" appearance. There are additives you can put in the paint to make it more self leveling as well if you're using a brush or a roller.

Originally Posted by Remy11

I didn’t read through all of the comments but when we were selling our previous home, our agent told us to paint the cabinets white and he could list the house for 20k more. This was back in 2016, so I’m sure that number is much higher now. He said the kitchen is perceived as more modern with white cabinets.

Painting the cabinets white can have an incredibly positive influence on the kitchen's appearance even if you do nothing else. White cabinet paint plus stainless steel appliances, quartzite counters, and a modern tile backsplash costs very little compared to a complete kitchen update but you get probably 80% of the effect.

[bostongymjunkie]

Spray painting requires more prep but is faster, but brushing with the proper professional quality paint brush will last longer. Both require extensive experience to do properly. No true painting craftsman would recommend spray painting on cabinet work. That would be a hack or someone looking to save time. Problem is that when it comes to painting there are more hacks around these days than true craftsmen. There is no certification process and people think they can just pick up brush and start tossing paint on. Nah, not if you want quality.

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by msRB311

I think most people who have some experience with painting would do that painting before hiring someone else.

Painting cabinets requires far more skill than painting walls. However, I agree that many people don't know their limitations and will attempt things that should be left to professionals on a regular basis. I'm sure I've been guilty of doing so myself many times.

Originally Posted by goldenage1

Actually, $7K is cheaper that replacing all the cabinets. You are correct about the contractor's methods. We did it planning to stay the rest of our lives in the house, so we did not want the DIY method. We have a large house in North Carolina, so our labor rates were less. However there were 2 men spending 4 and a half days inside the house, plus a day for painting the doors in the shop.

If the job is for resale, I also would not want to present a DIY job where I could see the roller marks. Instead, I would vote for cleaning up the cabinets, and let the next buyer decide what to do.

$7K is FAR cheaper than replacing cabinets. $7K likely wouldn't even cover the material cost of replacing the cabinets let alone the cost of materials and labor. You could probably buy a kitchen full of cabinets for $7K but they'd be low quality cabinets probably with a thermofoil finish instead of paint.

I once had a client who was buying new construction and the house had six bathrooms. The builder was offering a $3000 allowance for 6 vanities two of which needed to be double vanities. I told my client "no way will that allowance cover all the vanities" and this was especially true because this person had expensive taste. The builder insisted they had already spec'ed out the house and that buying vanities for that amount would be "no problem." My client decided to take their word and ended up spending 4x the allowance on vanities. Turns out the builder was planning on putting in low end thermofoil finish cabinets in the bathrooms. I've seen builders cheap out from time-to-time but this was pretty egregious based on the price point of this house.

[msRB311]

Ok i thought someone said they paid 7k to paint cabinets and that seems like a lot to me. These days Im sure people are charging all sorts of crazy prices for home improvements like painting walls and cabinets. My DH is great at painting (walls and cabinets, he has been paid for it by others back in the day) so we never hire someone for those sorts of jobs. I wish he knew how to do more, lol.

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by msRB311

Ok i thought someone said they paid 7k to paint cabinets and that seems like a lot to me. These days Im sure people are charging all sorts of crazy prices for home improvements like painting walls and cabinets. My DH is great at painting (walls and cabinets, he has been paid for it by others back in the day) so we never hire someone for those sorts of jobs. I wish he knew how to do more, lol.

Painting walls/ceiling/trim is usually quite a bit less expensive than painting cabinets.

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by Bunny123456

Curious what the collective wisdom here says about renovations before selling.

We have a condo which we’ll hopefully be in a position to sell soon in one of the highly desirable metro west suburbs. Based on neighboring homes and condos that sold around us in recent years, it seems like nearly all new buyers come with a sledgehammer and/or a contractor and do their own work no matter how nice or not nice the place is. So there is a part of me that wants to avoid the hassle and expense and sell as is. To be clear, we are not talking about a place that’s a dump - oldest things here are 15-16 years old and plenty are much newer such as HVAC and water heater, newer appliances, toilets, faucets, etc. But carpet has seen (much) better days, master bathroom is very “2004” and kitchen cabinets aren’t the most modern. If we wanted to stay here, there is no question these things would need to be updated. I just don’t know if it makes financial or other sense to do it for someone else whose tastes may or may not match ours.

What’s most prudent when selling in regard to these things?

I'm not even sure what this means. We did our master bedroom in our old house in 2003, and I am certain that if we were still living there, it would still be exactly the same. When I think of 2004, I'm thinking pretty much the same as current, but I guess I'm getting old.

We are casually looking at condos in metro west because we have a friend who may want to move, and we'd like her to move near us/somewhere in metro west. Based on the listings we see, I would guess you are fine leaving your condo pretty much as it is and just making sure it is clean and decluttered, etc.

[matrix5k]

I haven't read any of the replies here but I would do nothing. We sold our first house with a 5 year old furnace and renovated bathroom. We didn't plan on moving at the time.

The same house is for sale 3 years later. The owner bought a new furnace and renovated the bathroom again, no idea why.