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Fix the leaks and the water stains on the ceilings, whether they were roof leaks or bathroom leaks!
People will overlook old, but they get anxious about unperformed basic repairs that telegraph likelihood of deeper issues.
Yeah, after replacing the roof in total I had loads of water stains and missing plaster to replace. The best way to hide water stains is to apply a thin layer of spackle, sand a bit and repaint. Otherwise, the stains will bleed through the primer over and over.
Oh, such fun living in the northeast with a partial flat roof. Now I live in the Southwest and it hardly rains. Much easier on roofs.
Title kind of says it all. We are thinking of selling our 1983 home in a few years, and I'd like to find out what - if anything - would be worth upgrading or renovating before we sell. Do people typically contact a realtor, or someone else, to get an honest evaluation? I'm not sure the process - I would want to be transparent that we are not looking to immediately sell the home, so I don't know if a realtor would typically provide this service 'in advance.'
The house has been well maintained, but has not been cosmetically updated. Kitchen, bath, trim, interior doors, etc. are original to house. Appliances are not original, but are older. For various reasons, we've not had the money to do any "non necessary" upgrades to the house until recently. We now can afford some changes, but not an entire renovation.
We live in a typical middle class neighborhood which is experiencing a good demand and houses are selling quickly. However, I've noticed all the houses have been upgraded (new kitchen, bath, appliances, updated paint, trim, etc...) I haven't seen any comps for houses that are still stuck in the 1980s.
Basically, we're trying to determine if we should just sell our house 'as is' (for a lower price than other, updated houses), or if doing a few upgrades might result in a quicker sale and be worth the investment.
Thanks for any advice!
Jamie
No one has a crystal ball and where we are now are far as real estate and where we will be in a few years is anyone's guess.
In our location it is a sellers market right now with virtually non-existent inventory. Houses are selling regardless of their being dated or updated.
A friend just recently sold her house at above asking, her realtor prior to listing wanted her to upgrade her kitchen. My friend declined and the house sold in three days.
Because of the demand in our location buyers are willing to pay premium for dated homes and then pay for the remodeling out of their pockets.
As many posters have said I would make sure the house is structurally sound well maintained and freshly painted. Depending on where this crazy market takes us in the future should determine what you will need to do to sell your home.
Trying to remodel now with the shortage of labor and materials might prove a costly mistake if the real estate markets shifts significantly in the future.
To me if you have accumulated some value in your home now and you invest more right now and then it becomes a buyers market when you decide to sell you might not have the wiggle room financially if you heavily invested in a few costly upgrades now.
The one DYI project I did myself 2 years before selling my 1980 house seven years ago was to remove wallpaper in one bathroom and wall paper trim border in the master bedroom. That project was enough to insure I would never ever put wall paper in my new home.
The condo I bought when I retired had a very minimal wallpaper trim border in two bathrooms and the kitchen. The first thing I did was to have a professional painter come in to remove the wallpaper and paint the entire condo. If there had been anymore wallpaper I would have likely passed on the condo.
So, if you have wallpaper it is a good DYI project to get rid of it before you put the house up for sale.
You may hate what I'm going to tell you, but it's probably a good idea to paint your kitchen cabinets. My agent, who was great, btw, said to paint them white to make the room "pop." (That's how they talk.)
I removed them from the hinges, soaked the hardware in oxalic acid to remove rust and grime, sanded the cabinets and repainted in semigloss. They were clean, updated and bright when I put them back up.
I was on my own, and truly worked myself to a state of exhaustion getting the house ready. In the end, it showed great and I had 20 offers.
This is the cheapest way to improve your kitchen and two people working on it could get it done faster.
It sounds like the OP’s home is from the ‘80s. I have an ‘80s kitchen with melamine cabinets. Repainting is not an option and the cabinets do not have pulls. I bought here last year and it was not really a deterrent. What would be more of a deterrent is wallpaper all over the place that needs to be removed.
It is absolutely worthwhile to remove wallpaper and repaint the walls/trim, get rid of ultra dated drapery, and replace carpet if it has obvious stains and is no longer serviceable.
You may hate what I'm going to tell you, but it's probably a good idea to paint your kitchen cabinets. My agent, who was great, btw, said to paint them white to make the room "pop." (That's how they talk.)
I was about to do exactly that with my kitchen cabinets - paint them white. But then, at the last moment, my agent said to scrap the idea because it was too much work.
I would seek the advice of a seasoned RE agent since most home owners become to emotionally attached to their house in order to deter what they “think” a perspective buyer is looking for or finds appealing.
Cosmetically you have no way of knowing what a future buyer might like, however any items relative to the main construction, water integrity, certificate of occupancy or safety issues of the home might be something worth repairing or bringing up to par prior to listing the house to sell.
I would seek the advice of a seasoned RE agent since most home owners become to emotionally attached to their house in order to deter what they “think” a perspective buyer is looking for or finds appealing.
Cosmetically you have no way of knowing what a future buyer might like, however any items relative to the main construction, water integrity, certificate of occupancy or safety issues of the home might be something worth repairing or bringing up to par prior to listing the house to sell.
I agree totally. My old house ( the 1927 bungalow) was totally updated as far as the roof, plumbing. HVAC. etc. went. However. I had always intended to replace the formica kitchen countertops but never got around to them, although they were in immaculate condition. I really thought I would need to upgrade them before selling but my realtor pooh-poohed the idea. He was right and the house sold on the first offer.
Title kind of says it all. We are thinking of selling our 1983 home in a few years, and I'd like to find out what - if anything - would be worth upgrading or renovating before we sell. Do people typically contact a realtor, or someone else, to get an honest evaluation? I'm not sure the process - I would want to be transparent that we are not looking to immediately sell the home, so I don't know if a realtor would typically provide this service 'in advance.'
The house has been well maintained, but has not been cosmetically updated. Kitchen, bath, trim, interior doors, etc. are original to house. Appliances are not original, but are older. For various reasons, we've not had the money to do any "non necessary" upgrades to the house until recently. We now can afford some changes, but not an entire renovation.
We live in a typical middle class neighborhood which is experiencing a good demand and houses are selling quickly. However, I've noticed all the houses have been upgraded (new kitchen, bath, appliances, updated paint, trim, etc...) I haven't seen any comps for houses that are still stuck in the 1980s.
Basically, we're trying to determine if we should just sell our house 'as is' (for a lower price than other, updated houses), or if doing a few upgrades might result in a quicker sale and be worth the investment.
Thanks for any advice!
Jamie
In my opinion, You should notify your realtor about the current state of your home. Because transparency is important in any deal. After that, whoever buys that house, he/she will get the renovation done on his own.
We are about to close on my late mother's house, which was built in 1957 with an addition made in 1969.
One of the original bathrooms has original tile and fixtures. The other had the floor tile replaced and the vanity replaced, but years ago for both.
The upstairs bathroom looks just like it did when it was added in 1969. All three bathrooms are huge.
The kitchen, which is the largest room in the house, is functional but badly in need of updating. We left it as it is for the buyer to figure out what they want to do with it. (I suspect they will knock out the wall between the kitchen and living room, make it an open concept, and put in an island or something.) It had various cosmetic upgrades over the years and new appliances along the way, but nothing recent except newer countertops in the past ten years or so.
There is no central air. The boiler is original (and we even found the manual).
But the first floor has original hardwood floors, and the house is structurally sound. The roof was replaced six or seven years ago. We did painting and cleaning and some repairs around windows and other exterior cosmetic fixes, painting, tore up the old carpets that covered the floors, and trimmed branches outside (there are about thirty trees on the half-acre property). Those were the things our RE agent recommended we do.
There are six bedrooms plus a family room off the kitchen. We sold the house as is otherwise, knowing someone will want to come in and do their own thing.
When the RE told us what she was listing the house for, I was a little nervous because it seemed high to me. We're thirty miles from NYC, so the market is hot, but most of the houses in the neighborhood were updated and selling for more than asking. We didn't think someone would want a house that needs so much work.
We got an offer for asking the day after it went on the market. She wanted no inspection contingencies other than a radon test and an inspection for structural soundness. We got three other offers, including one for $25K over asking but who wanted a lead paint and environmental inspection contingency, and with a 63-year-old house, we figured that extra money would be reduced quickly. We took the first offer.
We thought the buyer might be doing a tear-down, but nope, her kids were with her picking out their bedrooms, and she asked permission last week to go to the house and meet a contractor to refinish the hardwood floors. She has a business, so perhaps she will use some of the space for an office.
Listening to the RE agent's recommendations worked out for us.
When you die at 91, your kids are already old, too. None of us had the appetite (or the funds) to upgrade this house before selling. It was work enough just to clean it out.
Fix anything that's broken, clean everything that isn't moving, and do some decluttering to make the home feel more spacious. Done.
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