I'm a bit confused and I hope the RE forum is the right place to post this (vs. house)....
We're thinking of selling our house in a year or so. I can't help but think that all the standard advice or what you see on HGTV doesn't exactly apply to us, for a couple reasons:
Our house is definitely a "starter". It was built around 1915, and is best described as a "worker's cottage". It's a cute older home but simple, no elaborate Victorian elements or funky Craftsman features. Just a cute, smaller house. It's crowning glory is the huge front porch with square columns.
We are in a low income neighborhood We paid $73k for the house approximately 3 years ago. We bought it because it was what we could afford, it was older (which was a must), and it had been well cared for. Electrical was updated, plumbing updated, roof less than 5 years old. We overlooked a lot of cosmetic stuff because it was a good, solid house with a lot of potential. There is definitely old house charm: crown molding, a window seat in one room, original doors all over the house, and so on.
The thing is, I had all these plans for the house that come from an 'old house purist' point of view that I don't think necessarily will apply to other buyers in the future. So I have to decide what needs to be done to sell it, vs. what should be done to "restore" it.... if that makes sense.
Number one issue is the kitchen; it has ORANGE formica counter tops. An almond fridge, and a newer black and stainless gas stove. The stove is pretty awesome but doesn't "fit" at all. Heck, the entire kitchen is mismatched. Oh, and there are some glass-front cabinets.
The bathroom is next. At some point the previous owners removed the claw foot bathtub and replaced it with an almond tub/shower... but good grief. They didn't buy a "shower surround", they just put up those waterproof panels, sloppily, and built a half "wall" on one end, and put in some cabinets on the other. It's pretty ugly. The toilet was also almond (I replaced with white) and the sink was an 80's monstrosity that I replaced with a pedestal sink. I pulled tile off to reveal original beadboard on the walls. I replaced the dated tri-mirrored medicine cabinet (with "hollywood" lighting) with a vintage medicine cabinet and light fixture but that's as far as I got.
Finally there's the floors. There's hardwood throughout, but in all but one room it's covered with layers of ugly vinyl.
So, I don't know what to do with the kitchen, not sure what to do with the tub and shower in the bathroom (if we were staying I'd put in another claw foot with a shower set up!), and have been given mixed input on the floors.. either try and remove the vinyl and restore the original floors, or put laminate on top of it all and call it good. Or carpet??
I want to make it look as attractive as possible but I don't want to go overboard here... realistically we can't expect to get more than 80 or 85k when we sell. I mean, you don't put leather interior in your Yugo.
It's not so much the house, but the neighborhood... I think there's a different kind of buyer here and I wonder if all the "stainless and granite" is even appropriate??
I hope I'm making sense. I just need to figure out where to focus our efforts.
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.
