Hello everyone and welcome! For my second post I want to speak primarily to sellers. My goal in this is to help reduce your stress and increase your revenue by using my experience to provide some tips and tricks for those preparing to list a property for sale. This information is not generally meant to be scientific, investment advice, or any of the like. It is mainly intended to give some food for thought, and to show that getting a good sale price doesn’t always have to involve tons of effort or money.
My pattern for this post will be to take you through my cumulative experiences of looking at properties as a buyer and listing my most common “I wish the seller would haves” and “if I were selling this would…”.
Okay, so with that said, we begin outside. The first thing we encounter is the yard. My advice here, and it may seem a no-brainer, is to make sure the yard is under control. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve had to play Indiana Jones on my way into a property. I’m not saying you must go in for crazy landscaping; just make sure the lawn is mowed and weeded. When possible, edge the walks, but for certain ensure the walkways and steps are unobstructed. Getting whacked in the face with a spiky branch before they even reach the front door is not going to put your buyer in the kind of mindset you’re looking for. Again, if you can landscape, great, but the main thing I look for is that things aren’t overgrown or scraggly. Do that and you at least haven’t started out underwater.
If you can’t handle the yard yourself, consider hiring someone to help. Professionals can get pricey, yes, but it is well worth it. And even hiring a neighborhood kid will likely cover your needs here.
Keeping to the outside, let’s move on to the exterior of your structure. A few hundred dollars spent on a pressure wash could be one of the single biggest things you can do to sell your home at a nice price! If you’ve got older siding that has oxidized, though, proceed with caution. You don’t want to strip things down to bare metal. If washing doesn’t cut it or isn’t advisable, then consider some touch-up paint. Now I know, this type of advice may seem eye-roll worthy but think of it this way. It is entirely possible that a twenty dollar can of paint could net you another thousand on your final sale price, and that’s a rate of return which would make a stock investor’s head explode! In the case of touch-up, I’d focus on anything that is peeling or looks ‘grungy’. Think especially of rails, posts, door frames and the like, especially if visible from the street.
Moving inside, I’m going to focus again on the basics which are likely to have a high rate of return. More on the ‘big stuff’ a bit later.
My grandma used to say that it is okay to be poor, but it isn’t okay to be dirty. Translating this to real estate, I’d say that it is okay to be basic, it can be okay to be dated, but it is not okay to be dirty. If nothing else, make sure the inside of the property is clean and as smell-free as possible. (A word on smell: Many investors say things to the effect that stinky houses smell like money. This means that they know they can get such homes cheap and, with a little effort, gain a big chunk of value.) If you don’t have the time or ability to clean the property yourself, again I highly recommend a professional service. If you cannot afford this, consider speaking with your agent about the potential of paying to clean out of the sale proceeds. Now, be careful with this type of thing. Make sure everything is in writing and in accordance with the applicable laws and such. Please note, I’m not saying to go wild and agree to put in new paint, carpet, etc. I am saying that if it takes a couple hundred to clean the property, a good agent should help make that happen. Because, they want to sell the property fast and for a good price, too!
When it comes to interior painting, a fresh coat is great, but it is not always needed and can be done poorly. I’d rather you save your money than pay for or execute a slapdash paint job. I’ve seen too many houses coated in ‘investor beige’ that looks to have been applied by a troop of over-caffeinated 4-year-olds. I can’t even count them! In my opinion, this just looks awful and makes me wonder what kind of workmanship has gone into the things I can’t see!
Also, for the love of all that is decent and holy, please do not paint unpainted vintage woodwork! I realize others may not feel as strongly, but for me, every time I see this, I knock ten percent from my offer price! If someone wants the woodwork painted, they can do so. But if it is painted and they don’t want that……well they’re in for a real treat. Also covering the original woodwork eliminates that ‘wow’ factor. (Please note, I’m planning a future post on older homes which will go more into this sort of thing.)
The final couple paragraphs will focus on the big things: kitchens, bathrooms, other large repairs, and one last bonus tip.
When it comes to kitchens and bathrooms, I generally don’t recommend going in for a full remodel just to help sell the home, unless there are special circumstances. What do I mean by this? Well, in general, replacing all of your cabinets is not going to raise the final sale price more than the cost of the cabinets, so don’t do it. But….if you have 70s vintage rusted metal cabinets, then yeah maybe it actually will help you to replace them. The rule of thumb I use is to try showing the space to a stranger, like your realtor, and see if they have a cringe response. If not, then you probably don’t need to go hog-wild with remodeling. Some new drawer pulls, new faucets perhaps, and a good cleaning should do it. A word about toilets here: If you can’t get the old one clean, then you should absolutely replace it. Trust me, a grungy toilet will undo all the goodwill with a buyer you have built up over the rest of the house’s tour. Note: a real estate office, while they can’t recommend professional services, should have a list of local providers which you can reference for such fixes.
Thinking of other things, what if you have large repairs you can’t afford to fix? In this case, my suggestion is to stop the bleeding and move on. Properties with major unresolved issues are likely going to be fodder for investors, but if you at least stabilize them, you can still help your sale price. There was a large old home I looked at a while back which, while very solid, had an actual hole in the roof that the owner refused to address! This meant that the home became less solid every day, and I had to recalculate my repair costs every time there was a drop of rain! I understand that a roof is horribly expensive and not everyone can afford to repair it. But for the love of cheese whiz, at least put a ten-dollar tarp over it! Had that roof been covered by a tarp, I’d likely have made an offer on the property. In this case, the seller may have lost 20k for want of ten bucks! The point here is that it is okay if you can’t make the repair. Just do what you can, but be sure to do what you can.
Now for my bonus tip! Basements often get the stink eye, especially in older homes. I have taken up the practice of patching and then painting the basements of my properties with water-blocking masonry paint. This stuff is not cheap, but again if you can afford it, the results are astounding. Generally, people have low expectations for basements, so if they find your walls clean and painted, it is easy to make a good impression! AND, if the basement was the last thing they saw, then that good impression is going to leave with them!
So, in conclusion, I’d like to leave all you sellers out there thinking “hmm, what are some small things I can do that will have outsized returns on my sale price?”. While I feel all the specifics mentioned above are good, it is more important to get into the mindset they represent. I hope this article will help you get into that mindset, give you things to discuss with your agent, your friends, and your family, and help you sell your property fast and fair!