Home Improvement Tips on How You Can Sell Your Home for More Money in Less Time on a Budget
Staging Tips:
If you follow these simple steps on staging your home, potential buyers will be
greeted with something worth living in.
- Clean and De-clutter: A neat and orderly home tells potential buyers,
“this home is perfect for you.” The presence of personal effects such as
ironing boards, pet food, etc. will make it harder to sell your home. If you
can’t put away all your clutter, consider renting a small storage unit.
Don’t be lazy. This is actually the most important tip I have for you.
According the HomeGain.com survey, spending $402 on cleaning and
de-cluttering your home will yield a benefit of $2,024 and is recommended by
99% of real estate agents. This is your first $1,600 out of your $10,000
goal. - Depersonalize: Unfortunately, you will need to put away your personal
photos. The purpose of staging is to give prospective buyers a better
environment to imagine themselves living in your home. Personal affects only
detract from this. - Furniture: Like the term “dress to impress,” show off your best
furnishings in a similar way. Place furniture to highlight your home’s best
architectural features. - Wall art: To make your home more appealing to the potential buyers, add
neutral wall art that targets your local demographic. You could also just
take down the wall art only caters to your personal taste. Wall art doesn’t
have to be expensive. - Exterior staging:
- Adding a new and inviting front doormat is part of making the first
impression a welcoming one. - Adding potted plants can be used to detract attention from unsightly
areas of your home. - Consider buying a new set of patio furniture only if it’s on sale.
You could also try Big Lots for buying patio furniture.
- Adding a new and inviting front doormat is part of making the first
Remodeling & Repair Tips:
Almost every store has a clearance sale on select items. If you can’t find
anything good at one store, go to another. The best deals are usually located in
ugly industrial areas in little known areas off the beaten path. For light
repairs and remodeling, hire various tradesmen directly like plumbers,
electricians, window installers, etc. from reputable sources. However, if you
are considering a full remodel, hire a general contractor. Shopping around for a
general contractor can be a daunting task. Currently in this economy, a
wholesale grade contractor (“flipper grade”) can do a full remodel and
restructuring for as low at $25/SqFt or 9% of the sales price of your home,
which will provide a value add of about 7-17% based when comparing the sales
prices of unremodeled homes to remodeled homes. During the 2005 housing bubble,
the same remodel would cost $60/SqFt. While these contractors are hard to find
and are reluctant to work with homeowners on a one-off basis, the difference
between your lowest bid and your highest bid will be double. So, shop
aggressively for contractors. Once you have found prospective contractors,
lookup their license status online through your state’s contractor licensing
board before you interview them. Contractors rarely charge to give you an
estimate on remodeling your home.
- Timing:
- Be sure to plan out which order you want to do your projects.
Remodel one part of your home at time so that you can continue living
there. - You can get the best prices on seasonal items during end of the
season clearance sales.
- Be sure to plan out which order you want to do your projects.
- Repair: Take care of the more difficult stuff first like deferred
maintenance and repairs. New buyers don’t want a house that needs a lot of
work. You will recoup about 4 times the cost of repairing electrical and
plumbing per HomeGain.com. - Painting:
- Paint the interior of the house
with neutral colors. Wacky and tacky colors will scare away potential
buyers. - Painting the outside of your
home dramatically increases its curb appeal without incurring too much
cost. - In the Santa Ana real estate
market, newly painted homes sell for about 5-7% more per MLS data.
- Paint the interior of the house
- Exterior cleaning: For areas such as driveways, patios, fences, and tile
roofs, hiring a professional to power wash these areas is an inexpensive way
to improve your home’s marketability. - Doors:
- Upgrade or paint the front
door: Replacing the front door of your home may cost upwards of $1,200.
You can get fiber glass door that looks like wood from Home Depot or
Lowes for a little as $300 when on clearance sale. As long as you don’t
spend too much money on great looking front door, the resale value will
be about $1200-2000 per Remodeling Magazine’s 2011-2012 Cost vs. Value
Report. Remember, after updating your front door, remove and store the
screen door so it won’t detract from the appearance of your front door.
An alternative would be painting the front door in a classic color that
ties with the rest of the exterior of your home. - Replace door knobs, locks,
plates, and hinges. (Currently, the brushed nickel finish is popular and
it’s worth the extra cost.)
- Upgrade or paint the front
- Lighten and brighten: Lightening and brightening the house is a quick,
cheap fix.- Normally, light fixtures are
limited to 60-75 watt bulbs due to safety reasons. You can brighten up
your house dramatically with 17-25 watt CFL bulbs, which put out more
light than 60 watt bulbs without having to invest in more light
fixtures. - Upgrade your window treatments.
The new faux woods are cheaper and better than real wood. Adjusting your
blinds so that as much light comes in as possible will improve the
marketability of your home.
- Normally, light fixtures are
- Windows: Replace old windows with the newer double-pane vinyl windows.
Homes for sale in Garden Grove sold for 3-7% more with double-pane windows
per MLS data. - Fireplaces: Nowadays with modern heating, fireplaces do not improve the
value a home. Most fireplaces are ugly and their appearance should be
minimized. New stylish mantels for unaccented fireplaces usually cost more
than $1,000 and are not worth it. Consider creative solutions such as
painting the old brick surrounds with fireproof paint or tiling over it with
nice looking 12-inch travertine floor tile. - Cabinets: Resurfacing or painting old cabinets is the cheapest option.
Reface them if necessary, and save as much as the original wood as possible. - Countertops, sinks, and faucets: Granite countertops are not necessary,
unless you can get a good price on them. You can get good looking Tier 2
granite for a low as $300 per slab if you aggressively shop around. Replace
faucets that leak or look old, and replace stained sinks if necessary. - Kitchen Appliances: Replace appliances only if dated looking and over 10
years old. - Walls and Ceilings:
- Remove your wallpaper because
you personal taste in wallpaper rarely appeals to prospective buyers. - Paint dated wood paneling
unless in good condition - Scrape any popcorn ceilings
- Remove your wallpaper because
- Flooring:
- Hardwood flooring is a major
asset. If it is damaged, consider refinishing it. - If your carpets are in good
condition, but are only dirty, then hire a professional to clean your
carpets. You can find the best deals on carpeting cleaning from the PennySaver. Other sources to consider are AngiesList.com and
CraigsList.com. Choose neutral carpeting to replace old or damaged carpet. In
the Santa Ana real estate market, travertine tile is popular, and it’s a
worthwhile replacement for carpet in main living areas. - For replacing damaged carpet in
bedrooms, consider wood laminate flooring. It’s cheap, easy to install,
and it adds value to your home, whereas carpet does not. - Where there is tile flooring,
clean the grout and fix broken tiles or replace.
- Hardwood flooring is a major
- Bathroom: Considering updating the look of your bathroom with a few
simple tips.- Replace fixtures with new
faucets, towel bars, and toilet paper holders. Replacing old toilet
seats goes without saying. Replace old chrome or white shower heads with
the newer large metallic looking shower heads, which you can get for as
little as $50. - If you currently have a small
vanity in bad shape, consider replacing it with an all-in-one vanity on
clearance sale from a major hardware store or wholesale stores, like
Costco or Sam’s Club. These vanities come with a white marble
countertop, sink, and faucet fixture for as little as $350 on clearance
sale. Installation labor should about be about $100-150. - If the bathtub looks old, you
can save money by reglazeing it rather than
replacing it. Even if you do nothing to the bathtub, be sure to put new caulking
along the bathtub. - Mirrors: Instead of installing
a fancy readymade mirror, consider installing a new flat mirror and then
adding white or finished wood trim around it, which you can purchase
from your local hardware store.
- Replace fixtures with new
- Pool: Before the prevalence of central air conditioning, pools used to
add significant value to a home. Now, pools increase the time your home sits
on the market because some buyers simply don’t want a home with a pool to
take care of. Never add a pool to sell your home. If you already have a
pool, just make sure that it has any needed repairs.
Landscaping & Gardening Tips:
According to local MLS data, homes with recent or well maintained landscaping or
sell for about 4-9% more in the Santa Ana real estate market. If you’re trying
to decide whether to hire a gardener or landscaper to do your landscaping, hire
a gardener. While a gardener may not have the skill set that a landscapers has,
you will get the best value for your dollar by using a gardener who knows a
little but about landscaping.
- Timing: If you choose to plant new plants, remember that some plants
take a lot longer to grow, which means you will not get any benefit for
selling your home while the plants are still growing. - The front: Focus your landscaping efforts on the front of the house
rather than the back because this is what homebuyers notice the most. - Simple maintenance: If you don’t already have a gardener, hire one, even
if just for short time, to do simple maintenance such removing weeds,
pruning overgrown plants, and fertilizing the lawn. To save money on
gardening and water, choose low maintenance plants. - Lawn: Tend to your lawn maintenance first because it takes the
longest time to improve. A lush green lawn sets the first impression of your
home and it shows pride of ownership. If your lawn cannot be restored in a
timely manner, consider replacing the lawn with newly laid down sod. - Color: Add pots of colorful and attractive flowers to greet buyers.
Flats of flowers like impatiens can be purchased very inexpensively at your
local hardware store. The results are immediate.- When planting new fruit trees,
leave the labels on them because homebuyers often would like to know the
names of your new plants. - Avoid invasive plant species
such as the purple loosestrife because they spread everywhere and take
over your garden.
- When planting new fruit trees,
- Depersonalize: Remove personal effects around yard such as garden
gnomes, ceramic ducks, plastic flamingos, etc. because while they may appeal
to you, they probably won’t appeal to prospective buyers. - Irrigation: Rather to worry about saving water and letting your lawn
die, it’s time to optimize the programming of your irrigation timer. Check
for leaks in your irrigation system. The cost from the water utility company
of unattended to irrigation leak can exceed the initial cost of the
irrigation system itself. Have irrigation leaks repaired promptly before you
change your irrigation timings. If you don’t already have an irrigation
system, for the short time of selling your home, it’s cheaper to hire a
gardener to water your lawn and planters twice weekly than it is to invest
in a new irrigation system.
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