Replace carpet before selling?? (investment, sale, prices, broker)
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I would remove the carpet and leave it with the sub flooring, making it upfront that the buyer gets a new flooring allowance. This avoids the turnoff of stains and dirt. I think most buyers' will be happy with this. It's when they think you are trying to palm off the old dirty carpet at full price that turns them off.
I think this is a bad idea. It will make things look unfinished and generally less nice than competitive properties. I feel you get the worst of both worlds. you get to pay for their new floor covering as well as getting less value for your house as it looks worse than the competition. I think this is the case with almost all allowance items.
I say replace with something neutral and somewhat cheap.
I buy places with bad carpet and old paint. I expect to get a huge, gigantic, enormous discount off the price.
I get that huge price reduction because I am always the only buyer who will purchase that place with bad carpet and worn out paint. Bad carpet makes your place a fixer-upper. Those sell for a discount.
Really bad carpet, especially with a lot of stains, are just kind of gross. With lots of stains I start to assume they had a pet that went to the bathroom everywhere and they didn't bother to do anything about it. And if they didn't do anything about that, and were happy to live on pee-stained carpet, then what else did they neglect? I would much rather walk into a house with nice, yet cheap carpeting, that I could live with for a few years until I replaced with wood, than walk into a house and feel gross trying to step around what could be pee stains.
Problem with sellers giving a flooring allowance is getting it past the lenders, they have issues with the sellers giving money to purchasers even for things like flooring. It can get complicated. You end up having to do it before closing anyway, which is what sellers want to avoid by trying to do these "allowances".
I would remove the carpet and leave it with the sub flooring, making it upfront that the buyer gets a new flooring allowance. This avoids the turnoff of stains and dirt. I think most buyers' will be happy with this. It's when they think you are trying to palm off the old dirty carpet at full price that turns them off.
Or have some hardwood-looking flooring installed, such as engineered wood.
Many buyers no longer want carpet. Not even new builder grade carpet. They want wood.
I've never walked into a resale with subflooring, but I'd go for it before I'd ever go for old carpet with an allowance.
I have a carpet sales person coming over this afternoon, so we it will give us a better idea of cost at least.
Replacing carpet probably gets you a return of at least 3 to 4 times what you pay.
Just be moderate, put in something you'd normally put into the price level of the home.
Don't let them talk you into Laminate floors.
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