Are you looking for a smaller one-story view home to re-finish?
Do you like being at the top of the hill on a quiet single-loaded culdesac?
The insurance company did the remediation of a water leak, but expect these seniors to manage their own reconstruction project. We’d rather you do it your way! The house has a roof, newer sliders and windows, and shutters – do you mind doing the rest?
Here is the last sale of this floor plan – it closed at $842,500:
Did sheltering in place have any effect on home improvement rates? Our data says yes.
Over half of American homeowners (55%) said the pandemic and associated disruptions gave them time to improve their homes, while 59% admitted that spending more time inside due to lockdown inspired them to renovate their place of residence.
What’s the stated reason? “Finally having the time” was the top motivator, with 25% of homeowners saying that’s what drove them to go ahead with their improvement and remodeling projects.
Impressively enough, it ranked above the more typical drivers of home improvement, such as adding value to a home (21%) or making a home feel more comfortable and cozy. (21%).
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Landreths had just pulled the vinyl siding off their house and the cedar siding underneath was in dire need of a paint job. The boards were covered in peeling white paint and needed new life. But picking out the next paint color for your house can be a tough decision.
“We don’t want to be that neighbor with that bright ugly house that everyone sees every day,” Brian Landreth said.
So, they did what any 21st century Portland family would do: they crowdsourced it.
“We wanted to get the input of our neighbors,” Landreth said. “There’s a lot of pedestrians, bikes that go by daily.”
Landreth placed a sign out front with a QR code. The sign read, “Help us choose a color.” On the side of the house were five options.There’s Rocky Mountain, Wild Orchid, In Good Taste, Blessed Blue and finally, It’s Well. When a person scans the QR code they are directed to a Google Docs survey where they can rate the colors on a scale from 1-5.
The Landreths’ daughter Grace is taking a technology class in school and decided to use this survey as a way to collect data for a school assignment. Grace figured she would get a few hundred responses. What she wasn’t expecting was over 70,000.
“I didn’t think people from across the planet would vote on the color of my house that they probably don’t know where it is,” Grace said.
A neighbor tweeted a photo of the survey and it quickly took off. The Landreths started getting votes from around the world.
“Oh, this is cute. There’s someone from France, there’s someone from New York, this is fun,” Brian said when he first started getting votes.
Tens of thousands more poured in from as close as Portland to as far away as Brazil and Morocco and the opinions were as diverse as the country they were coming from.
“People from Portland are very opinionated on what we should see here in Portland. It’s so neat to see, you know, it seems like votes from the Midwest are like keep it brown, keep it neutral, keep it safe. People from Buenos Aires and Brazil are like bright and bold, do a mural!”
Home design network HGTV even retweeted the neighbor’s photo asking for votes.
The Landreths are surprised by all the responses, but say it’s perfect during this time.
“It’s been really fun. Neighbors have been so cool. It seems to really help with the sense of community. It’s like we’re all together, apart,” said Brian’s wife, Kim.
So, what are their favorites? Grace would choose options 4 and 5, Kim says 3, 4 or 5 and Brian said he could see himself going bold with number 2, Wild Orchid.
You better be an all-around expert at fixing stuff in this environment – and be able to present a reasonable case to the buyers that’s easy to digest. We’re not out of the woods yet, but this video kept a situation from turning into a problem:
Shag carpet was all the rage in the 1970s. Wallpaper borders and glass bricks were beloved in the 1980s. Along came the blonde wood in the 1990s. And now, these features are some of the first things to go when planning a home remodel.
Wondering which current home design trends are heading to join the others in extinction? We posed that question to real estate agents. Here’s what they think is becoming totally overdone:
Barn doors
They started as an interesting accent, but now barn doors are everywhere, says James McGrath, a licensed real estate broker and the co-founder of New York City real estate brokerage Yoreevo.
“Not only have they become overdone, they never really made any sense,” he says. “They are terrible at blocking sound since they just hang over the doorway.” Plus, barn doors feel mismatched in more modern or contemporary homes, McGrath says.
All gray everything
Gray floors, gray walls, gray kitchen cabinets! Treating gray as a neutral is something that’s starting to feel predictable, says Samira Tapia, a Los Angeles-based Realtor with Compass: “I specifically have buyers asking me not to send them any all-gray listings.”
All-white kitchens
Remember black stone countertops—the ones that were trendy at the turn of the century but now look dated now? The all-white kitchen could be headed in that direction, too, says New York City agent Steven Gottlieb of Warburg Realty.
“We are seeing earthier colors now, including dark wood paneling on the cabinetry and stone countertops,” he says. He doubts the all-white kitchen will pull down sales, but any trend that has a big moment eventually dates itself.
Earlier this week the grays were on their way out, but it may take a while. Can you believe that 34% are removing the bathtub? From Houzz:
Anticipating Aging Needs: The majority of baby boomers (ages 55 or older) are addressing current or future needs of aging household members during master bathroom renovations (56%). One-third of boomers are addressing current aging needs (35%), while nearly a quarter are planning ahead for future needs (21%).
Curbless Enthusiasm: Nearly half of boomers change the bathroom layout and one-third remove the bathtub (47% and 34%, respectively). Other upgrades include installing accessibility features such as seats, low curbs, grab bars and nonslip floors in upgraded showers and bathtubs.
The Suite Life: Homeowners are focusing on the master suite as a whole, with nearly half of master bathroom projects accompanied by master bedroom renovations (46%). Master bathrooms command the second-highest median spend ($7,000) in home remodels, behind kitchens ($11,000), while master bedroom spend rivals that of living rooms ($2,000 versus $3,000, respectively).
Premium Features Galore: A surprising one in 10 master bathrooms is the same size or larger than the master bedroom (11%). Beyond size, premium features in master bathrooms are on the rise, with dual showers, one-piece toilets, vessel sinks and built-in vanities showing significant increases in demand in the last three years.
Bathed in Gray: Gray palettes continue to lead in walls and flooring and are increasingly popular in cabinets. Newcomer styles continue to overtake contemporary style, with farmhouse more than doubling in popularity, from 3% in 2016 to 7% in 2018. Matte nickel and polished chrome are the most common metal finishes.
Sellers should do more to their properties today to get them sold.
Even those who were nicely updated with the golden Tuscan look or cherrywood floors and cabinets just a few years ago look dated today. Modern photography doesn’t hide it, and in some cases can make it look worse.
Do you remodel the whole joint?
Nobody wants to go too far, but there are modest improvements you can make to help the cause:
New flooring and paint.
New pulls and handles on cabinets.
New towels and towel racks.
New lighting – especially the LEDs.
New sod and landscaping.
Here are a couple of extreme examples but for anyone selling a house that is more than ten years old, your trees are probably overgrown and more of a distraction. The clean, crisp neutral look goes for the exteriors too:
Don't listen to the economists - wait until you see July! Home prices see strong June bounce, but economists warn i… twitter.com/i/web/status/12906…
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