One of the most common questions we hear from our listing clients is whether or not they should renovate or remodel their homes prior to putting them on the market.
Whether your goal is to make more money off the sale of the home or to help it to sell faster, part of our services to our clients is to help you figure out where to focus your time, energy, and money.
Make repairs first
Concentrate first on making needed repairs. The buyer will most likely ask for these fixes, especially if they are for problems that show up on the home inspection report, so making them before listing the home helps avoid delays during the transaction.
Being proactive is always a smart move in real estate
Some of these tasks include fixing peeling paint, broken windows, torn screens, dripping faucets, and loose or missing handrails.
Any problems that affect health and safety should be addressed first. Then, use what’s left of your budget to make the cosmetic fixes that are attractive to homebuyers in your home’s price range.
Consider minor upgrades
“Don’t spend money that won’t yield a return on the investment. The best expenditures for most markets are paint, carpet, light, and plumbing fixtures,” Matthew George, the chief appraiser of Eagle Appraisals Inc. in Denver, Colo. tells The Wall Street Journal.
Decide which room or rooms require the most updating and start with those. Minor upgrades, such as new appliances or kitchen and bathroom countertops will do more to change your sales price compared to redoing the kitchen or bathroom entirely.
In fact, a major kitchen or bathroom remodel is a money pit, according to Remodeling Magazine. The magazine’s 2019 Cost vs. Value Report warns that you’ll spend $ 66,196 on a kitchen remodel, on average, yet you’ll only recoup 62.1 percent of that when you sell the home.
You’ll do better on a minor kitchen remodel, spending $22,507, and realize an 80.5 percent return.
There is simply no way you will make back what you spend when it comes to remodeling or room additions.
In fact, the repair or renovation task that returns the most is a new garage door (97.5 percent). To get the details about the study, visit remodeling.hw.net.
Save money or time?
When it comes to the purchase or sale of real estate, time is most certainly money. The longer a homeowner waits to sell their home after it has been listed for sale, the greater the likelihood that they will have to accept a price that is lower than they had originally intended.
The fact that a house is priced too much is the primary reason why it does not sell. Homes that aren’t in good enough condition to live in come in second place, however.
It is important to keep in mind that the first week a home is listed for sale is considered to be “the honeymoon phase” in the real estate industry. When new listings are made, this is the time when they receive the most attention, and the more people that visit the home, the more quickly it will sell.
According to the findings of a study that was conducted by a prominent real estate analytics business not so long ago, the first week that a house is put up for sale sees four times the amount of interest as the first month after it is listed.
After you’ve finished making any necessary repairs and improvements to the home’s appearance, your property may become the talk of the real estate market during the first week it’s on the market.
It would be our pleasure to meet with you and make some recommendations regarding the order in which you should perform the various activities and repairs that need to be done.
