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Real Estate
Reply to "Selling a house that is dated and "worn.""
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would paint and that’s it. [/quote] This but I'd also do some basic repair work to make it "move-in ready" even though it will be sold as a fixer-upper. Talking about stuff like fixing anything that would be a glaring annoyance to a new owner (but that you might currently overlook because you've lived there a long time). For us this included things like: - replacing a set of cabinets that no longer worked properly (they were "soft close" but that function no longer worked so they just hung open a half inch) and were just looking really worn - having the shower in the master bath re-grouted to replace grout that was very stained and had broken and fallen out in places - replacing a bathroom light fixture and a couple plumbing fixtures that had some rust and hard water build up -- we tried just rescuing them first but they were cheap contractor-grade installs to begin with and it wasn't worth it so we just replaced with slight upgrades (what we would be comfortable living with but not top of the line) in the same style. - replaced some wood work throughout the house that was just looking a little rough -- some broken or banged up quarter round at our baseboards, a window frame that had never been the same after an external leak that had been fixed years prior (the contractor who fixed it did not think at the time the window needed to be replaced because it was a short lived issue and he felt he'd dried the wood out enough but we saw warping emerge over time) and a few dinged up interior doors. Where we could repair instead of replace we did that but the goal was to make the house look like something that a first time buyer would be happy to live with for a few years as they slowly renovated the aspects that were outdated. We thought about how we felt as young first time buyers and the sorts of things that would be big turn offs or make us embarrassed to host guests at a house warming. We spent about 7k total on these repairs using a handyman recommended by our realtor and I think it resulted in us selling for 20-30k more based on neighborhood comps. For us this was a better investment than staging because it just gave the house a really nice feeling when people toured it (similar to what good staging does but in a way that offers real value to a buyer that staging doesn't offer). Some houses don't need these kinds of repairs but it sounds like OP's could probably benefit from this kind of light lift. We definitely priced in the dated kitchen and baths and the fact that some appliances were likely nearing their replacement date -- a fully renovated house in our neighborhood would easily have sold for 150-200k more than what we listed for. But these little improvements spared our buyers having to spend several thousand dollars right after buying a home to make minor repairs and move in and decorate. I remember as a first time buyer that was important to me -- I was okay with knowing "ok we'll probably be redoing the kitchen in the first 5 years and there's a chance the hot water heater will crap out early on" but I didn't want to have to repair dinged up doors or live with a stained shower with broken grout (and we didn't have the kind of funds after closing on our house to take on those repairs easily -- it would have waited a year or two at least). [/quote]
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