When you’ve decided to sell your home, the last thing you want to do is spend money to spruce the place up. After all, whoever buys it is going to replace those outdated kitchen cabinets and grungy bathroom tiles anyway, right?
“We’re often asked why any money should be spent freshening,” said Mickey Conlon, an associate broker with Douglas Elliman Real Estate. “The answer has to do with the psychological effect of assessing a renovation on a prospective purchase. Buyers assign dollar values to repairs that typically exceed the actual cost of remediation.”
To get the best return on your investment — and avoid turning off potential buyers — you need to ensure your home looks its best when it hits the market. At the same time, you don’t want to waste effort or money on improvements that won’t pay off.
Read full article here – good tips:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/realestate/preparing-your-home-for-sale.html
Where are you on staging these days? You had a post quite a while ago suggesting a lot of brokers go over the top with it and minimal staging — some flowers, removing clutter etc is best.
Thanks!
Great tips, but… I haven’t seen an epoxy over laminate stradegy that isn’t obnoxious. imo, epoxy is for cheap backwoods landlords, not home sellers. I believe you can get actual laminate countertops etc, precut at Home Depot, that aren’t embarrassing, and you can then cut it down to fit. Epoxy is for banjos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myhnAZFR1po
OK, I’ve made fun of those in the past but the rest were good – like this one:
CLEAR THE CLUTTER “Sellers don’t realize how much stuff they have and how it deters most buyers,” said Kathleen Perkins, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman. “A good rule of thumb is to get rid of 50 percent of your stuff.” This includes books, furniture and the clothes hanging in your closets, and it has the added effect of making small spaces seem bigger. Coffee tables, kitchen counters, windowsills and other surfaces should be cleared of family photos, plants and tchotchkes. Also, be sure to put away any personal effects — razors, hair dryers, shampoo bottles, toothbrushes — before showings.