When selling your home, you need to look at the condition of the property. Basically, the things that you would like to change with your house for you to stay there and live would be the same items that you may consider upgrading if you are considering selling your home. The area to spend money for your property that really show the best value are the kitchen and the bathrooms.
The item where you get the biggest bang for your buck is fresh paint. Most purchasers today for southwest senior homes like two tones for the walls and woodwork paint. We found it to be the most attractive to do light or white woodwork and the walls to be of a pleasant color and keep them the same throughout the house. This way a person can bring in their accent colors to pick up the colors in their furniture. The second item that seems to get a big bang for the buck is changing the carpeting when carpeting is worn or dated.
The biggest dilemma is if you decide to improve your property where do you stop. For instance, when you start working on the floors you might decide that the baseboards need to be redone. Instead of carpeting, it would sure look better with wood or travertine. Next when you get to the bathrooms the old fixtures look like they are tired. All the faucets and plumbing fixtures need to get switched out when you start work thinking about working on that then you look at the cabinets and they may need to be redone or replaced.
Countertops! You can’t put the old countertop on new or refinished cabinets they need to get changed. When doing the cabinets the bathroom cabinets need to get changed as well. After doing all that you’re looking at all those old appliances and they’re dated such as white, almond, bisque and many colors that aren’t as popular today. When they all match, the area looks great.
Feeling good and then going out into the garage off the kitchen area and the garage floor is filthy. Suddenly you want to redo the floor in the garage. The fresh coat of paint or even a Pebble Tec would look fantastic. Can you stop when you look at the furnace and realize this dated and the water heater doesn’t have a pan under it and it is 8 years old. All the work you’re doing. Many times it just seems to go on and on.
At this point, we haven’t even discussed the outside. Often times you take a look at your yard and it looks tired. Plants are overgrown, the rocks are thin, and the weeds are growing. You had a few leaks in the water system you had to dig up that makes the rock look funny, plants get removed and not replaced, and some of the trees are overgrown. The paint on the home is dirty. There are cobwebs on the wood and stucco. So then you need to repaint the house. To top all that off you have to get approval from the HOA in order to make that paint job work. It is true that curb appeal is extremely important for properties to sell you get a property looking very nice on the inside but if it doesn’t look nice on the outside often times you never even get the people inside to see the home.
Something to consider: when buyers are looking at your property, they are thinking “what is it that this home gives us that fits our lifestyle?” Then what are the changes to this property that makes it useful for us. The big answer is when they find a home where all that though is done and complete that is the home they will purchase. Then if they cant find that they buy the home is the closest fit to that idea.
So the big question is: where do you start and what do you do to get the home ready? There’s only one way to answer this question. What is the return for the amount of money that you need to put into the project to maximize the return. In order to discuss this you need to put yourself in the eyes of the buyer when you go looking at your property. List the advantages the property has and the value associated with those advantages. Then you need to see what the property is actually worth on any given lot within your community. When your lot has more to offer than other lots in the community it should get A+ for those things that reflects itself in the price. When your home or lot is one of the less valuable lots in a subdivision, maybe it should get a minus for the item that is affecting your homes value such as busy roads power lines, freeways fire stations, large walls, commercial businesses and the like.
You need to not be convinced of things that you know not to be true. Many times you get filled with blue sky items and blue sky prices when you yourself know that you would not pay that much for your home compared to others that have just sold. You can be very disappointed when things don’t sell after your price keeps coming down continually. There are many agents and friends that will lead you astray. Be careful, you can avoid most of those issues when you find a trusted advisor with knowledge in the marketplace.
Hopefully you’ll find somebody who will give you a straight answers. To truly get straight answers you’re going to need to let someone know that their efforts won’t be wasted, otherwise they won’t spend the time you need and give you the answers that you should hear.
When you have a meeting with an agent you are considering to sell your home. You are deciding if that is the person you are putting your trust in to guide you through all these questions. You also need to realize they are deciding if they want to put all the time required to do a proper job for you that should be done. I can tell you from being in all those conversations for over 39 years. It is not fun when you realize they are hiring the biggest number they hear for the price and the lowest commission. That will be a train wreck with a person that cannot be the advisor they need handling their transaction.