Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am in the process of planning to sell my home. This is the first house I have owned and thus the first home I have ever sold. For 10 years we have not put much effort or money in the house but we were used to living in a 1980s style home. The trouble I can't decide is deciding how much money to spend on upgrades and maintenance to get the house ready for sale. The real estate agent has a long list but of course she is connected with the man who is doing our maintenance so is not a neutral third party. She wants us to re-carpet and paint most of the house. The carpet is 1980s Green original. Kind of rough looking but if we spend all kinds of money on carpet then we may find a buyer who likes hardwood floors and will rip it out.
What did you do to get the house in shape for a sale? Did you get your money back in a higher price? Maybe by spending 10K to get the place in shape we will make only $7K in higher price but the house will sell quicker. What do you think?
Did you get your money back in a higher price?
Maybe by spending 10K... but the house will sell quicker.
Remember that money you thought you saved by not updating your home over the years?
You haven't saved anything. You just get to buy those things for someone else to enjoy now.
Carpet, paint, window blinds and a THOROUGH cleaning of everything is MINIMUM.
Next look at the vinyl flooring, cabinets and plumbing fixtures in the kitchen and baths
Then look at your water heater and furnace and appliances and the roofing too.
Oh yeah, don't forget the lawn and foundation plantings and tree trimming.
Every bit of it all needs *something* done.
I suggest you take a good hard look at the houses for sale in your neighborhood. How "upgraded" is your house compare to your comps? That should be your starting point. You don't want buyers to walk into your house and think "Wow compare to the house down the block this house needs a ton of work".
New carpeting, that's a tough one. You may get more bang if you replaced with hardwoods instead if some of the other houses have them too. Having recently gone through the selling and buying phase, I can tell you upgraded house sell alot faster. Have your agent pull a report of all the recently sold along with their pictures.
I didn't spend alot of money on my old house because the upgrades were on level with my comps. In my new neighborhood, houses that were not kept up sat for months while those that were very upgraded had offers in days.
When we sold our house we really didn't put any money into it. We just cleaned and de-cluttered, but we had maintained/upgraded the house over the years.
I'll give you a point of view from a buyer. I bought a house that was a fixer upper about 5 years ago at a fairly low price. I'm reluctant to do it again because it took much more $ for the work than I was told by the contracter the agent had come buy.
I'm in the process of buying a condo and let me tell you how much easier it is to sell one that's been fixed up. I looked at 10 probably. The ones with no fixing up were a walk in/walk out. They had been on the market (in a good market) for a while. I went into one that was clean and staged well and they had 2 offers within 2 days of it going on the market-got full price from me. I was checking out a neighborhood during this process and asked woman whose house had a sold sign on it how much she sold it for. She invited me in and it was also updated nicely-she also got a full price offer the day it was shown.
I agree with others here-decluttering, cleanliness and getting rid of old carpet are key to selling in a reasonable time frame. Laminates might be an option depending on your neighborhood.
I would ask for references from someone other than your agent to do the work though. That way no worries about conflicts. It's also always a good idea to get more than one bid
The real estate agent has a long list but of course she is connected with the man who is doing our maintenance so is not a neutral third party.
Good greif, you need to get more than one quote for work. Just picking a name in the yellow pages if better than not getting another quote. Estimates are free.
You may just want to put the house on the market for 3 months as is and see if it sells. If not fix it up, and put it on the market again.
I agree, basic stuff like paint and clean everything is a must. New carpet only if you have to. If the new buyer pulls it out and puts in hardwood, that is not your problem, you wont own it anymore.
Without knowing your location or market, I can only offer general rules of thumb.
In general, you should eliminate conditions (cosmetic or mechanical) that will "turn off" the average potential buyer who is looking for a move-in ready home. Painting and carpet are generally no brainers.
That said, if your home is a "clean slate" of "never been updated or upgraded", don't spend money on doing things if they won't knock a dent in the genral perception of the home. In other words, spending money on carpet and paint, but then having all buyer prospects still view it as an outdated rehab candidate because of outdated appliances, popcorn ceilings, old hardware and fixtures, brown paneling/trim, etc., is a waste of money. Like shining the bumper on an old car with faded paint. It just falls short.
The way I evaluate homes is to list things in three categories:
1) Must do. Ex: replace broken front porch light, paint front door, declutter and rearrange/stage.
2) Should do: Optional, but strongly recommended, depending on seller's budget.
3) Could do: Not required, but would help.
If you take the list your Realtor gave you, you and her can rank the items based on your budget, then get bids that break things out in that order also. Makes it easier to compare bids and see which ones get the most done for you.
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
7,646 posts, read 9,955,245 times
Reputation: 16466
You have two choices. Sell it as is for whatever you can get. Your buyer pool will be the "fixer upper" handyman type, or maybe flippers if the price is right and you just want to dump it.
The other buyer these days has no skills or tools and wants a brand new, turn key house that all they have to do is furnish and bring their toothbrush. If you stage it right many buyers will take the furniture too! This buyer can get a loan and will pay full retail if they like the location, schools, decor, etc.
IMHO - and this is only "my" opinion but your house must be "prefect" to draw top dollar. This means things like the baseboards must look fresh (no chips) hardware is new and shiny, upscale appliances, granite (even in a 60K tract house) quality flooring according to price point, new toilets, everything fresh and perfect!
And LANDSCAPING is half the battle. I can put a few thousand worth of plants and grass and a water feature and nice back yard, with a pergola and BBQ and add perhaps tens of thousands to the value of the home. (Obviously again this is a price point issue, you wouldn't put 5K in plants into a 50K house, but $500 might be worthwhile.)
Finally - you need to look at your comps - what a blinged out houses selling for vs dumps in your area?
Bottom line - 1980's - you pretty much said it all right there. A 1980's house in order to sell in today's market at full retail will (usually) have to be completely redone. You are talking a 30+ year old house!
Either dump the place on someone like me who will gut it and who has to make a profit and will pay accordingly - or renovate it top to bottom yourself - IF - your market can support the investment.
BUT - renovating houses for market is really not for the DIY'er. I've got 1/4 million in equipment, we have trucks, trailers, cement mixers, hoists, hundreds, maybe thousands of hand tools, my partner is a RE broker, we have an office and commercial warehouse construction space. I don't have to hire contractors, I or my crew do everything but AC and tile roofs. I can renovate a property for 1/3 what it will cost a DIY'er and in 1/10th the time.
So that is also a trade off. If you are handy, have the tools, the time and the initiative (and if your marriage will withstand the reno... ) it sounds like you could add a great deal of value to the property.
At the very least look at paint, carpet and fresh landscaping. But honestly, I look a LOT of properties. I look in the corners - it's the perfection in details that make one house stand out from the others, and that hosue will usually sell faster and for more money than an "also ran."
I hope my dissertation doesn't sound too harsh whatever you do, good luck to you!
What did you do to get the house in shape for a sale? Did you get your money back in a higher price? Maybe by spending 10K to get the place in shape we will make only $7K in higher price but the house will sell quicker. What do you think?
I had a condo in Sunnyvale, CA that was built in 1996 that I just sold in August. I lived in it from when it was built until 2010 and then for two years, had tenants who had kids and a pet. Both my property manager and my listing agent advised me that the carpet had exceeded it's expected life. The HOA does not allow for hardwood floors, so it was a no-brainer to replace it, and we also fixed a few odds and ends (replaced many of the baseboards, a board under the kitchen cabinet, etc.). Total cost of the repairs was about $6,000.
The unit was on the market for about a week and received 7 offers, 4 of which were above list price (and our agent had listed it at about the same price as the highest unit ever sold in the complex, and that unit had granite countertops, which mine did not). Overall, it sold for $50,000 more than I'd thought the unit was worth based on Zillow, and the buyers were all-cash, so we closed within about a week as well.
Hard to quantify how much of that is that the Bay Area market is heating up or that my listing agent did a good job or that the renovations made sure any potential buyer wouldn't be turned off by something minor, but I'd say that it was definitely worth it for us.
Also, I was reading Cryptonomicon at the time, so I was having nightmares about earthquakes and wanted a quick sale.
Green carpet is a no brainer that has to go. It won't photograph well and as such you will lose buyers from even stepping into your home.
Hire a local stager to come in and do a consult. Mine out here is a master of making homes look fantastic for a fairly inexpensive price. She only charges $100 for a consult here. She goes through every room and tells homeowners what they need to do, and will tell them where to go to buy things and what to buy.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
) it sounds like you could add a great deal of value to the property.
whatever you do, good luck to you!
