Readying a house to sell

[ryeish]

We've decided to sell and move back to my home state.

So far we've:

-made the place curb ready (the lawn looks nice, trees are trimmed, yard neat and tidy)

-painted the outside and put up new gutters

-cleaned out the attic and basement

We're about to:

-paint all rooms

-remove old nasty wallpaper from bathrooms and paint them (my thoughts on paper are that what my wife likes the new buyers might not like - a nice, neutral paint gives them a clean canvas to work with)

-clean up floors (all hardwood, they might need a sanding and refinish)

-fix a couple of places where the ceiling is funky because of water leaks (which have been fixed)

-check electrical system and install GFI breakers in upstairs bathroom

-install whole house surge suppressor

My questions: The kitchen. The cabinents are old and not exactly overly appealing. The kitchen could use a remodel, I don't want to spend 10k plus on something a buyer might not like. The alternative is to get some midline cabinets at home depot or lowe's and install them.

The electrical system. Nothing is grounded in the sense of their being

3 prong outlets. I thought about making everything 3 prong (along with proper grounding) for the TV, etc. Code says that I can ground individual ciruits and leave others non grounded. I have a grounded circuit in my computer room that I installed, it's a dedicated line with 3 rcpts. The city electrical codes guy said grounding everything was an option and that it wasn't mandatory.

The market here is fairly hot still, homes aren't sitting on the market for too long.

[Joseph Meehan]

Don't bother unless there is a reason. Dirty, odd color etc.

Agreed

A lot of work to refinish, see of a nice cleaning and wax may take care of it.

Yes.

Don't bother with the surge suppressor. I doubt if anyone considering your home will ever bother to look.

This one depends on how bad the kitchen really is. Unless it is really bad, I would not replace them. Too much money for too little return. Have your realtor take a look and see what they say.

Check the price for this. Don't do it ahead of time, but be ready make a deal equal to that price with the perspective buyer if they bring up the subject. Make it a cash back and they can have the job done.

How long a home sits is 98% based on the price. You can sell any home fast, IF you are willing to drop the price enough.

Generally when homes are not sell fast, it is because the sellers think their home should be selling for more than the actual market.

[Phisherman]

I'd forget about the kitchen cabinets and outlets. Remove all clutter, including closets. Possibly take out half the furniture to make to rooms look large and put high wattage bulbs in the ceiling lighting. Clean everything. Keep cut flowers by the door. Make sure the front door looks exceptional--welcome wreaths, flowers, freshly painted door, doorbell, etc.

[Ian Stirling]

Do you smoke? If so, it might be worth asking a non-smoker friend if it's noticable/bad in the house. The rest looks broadly sensible, though I'd question the need for electrical work not legally required, who looks at it?

Think about likely buyers. Re-doing a place for quick sale in a retirement community may be rather different to redoing a place for a new family.

[Joseph Meehan]

Good points. I meant to note the clutter issue. That is the #1 issue and cheap to do. That includes removing all family photos etc.

[Doug Kanter]

I'm shopping for a house and this reflects my opinion, which is often unusual. I'd leave the kitchen alone and expect to have it arise as a bargaining point. Or maybe it won't. There's no accounting for what some people feel is acceptable.

As far as electric, I have the broker point it out and see what kind of reactions he/she gets. If it seems like an issue, get the work done professionally. Amateur painting is one thing. Amateur electric work is an adventure most buyers don't want to hear about.

[ryeish]

I've tossed a bunch of stuff already. The attic needs a little more cleaning (I'm boxing everything up to pack, before we sell we'll take it to a storage place).

The door was just painted and looks really good (it's a door from a house built in 1870, it's unique to this area). No doorbell but I am going to put a door knocker on that doesn't have our name on it. Also a brass kickplace and a stormdoor.

Furniture wise....I could fit all of the furniture we own into our living room. Makes it easy to move when everything fits in a 17' truck. :)

[Curmudgeon]

Damned if I'd want a broker blithely pointing out possible negatives about my house and asking "what do you think about those ungrounded sockets?!" Answer questions? Yes. Solicit them. Absolutely not!

[Doug Kanter]

Maybe good brokers are adept at spotting a customer who knows what various repairs cost and won't be completely turned off to a house if a few negatives are pointed out. And, my broker and I are spotting things the moment we walk in the door. Perhaps the sell-side brokers figure they may as well be honest at that point.

In any case, most people have a house inspected before finalizing an offer, so these things are going to be revealed anyway. If I were selling a house, I'd rather not waste time & energy with purchase offers that are going to be retracted because something wasn't pointed out earlier. Many buyers understand that an owner simply didn't have the time or money to fix everything on the never-ending list of things a house needs.

I sold my used Taurus a couple of years ago by giving buyers an obsessively complete list of every repair done since the day I bought the car, along with a very short list of pretty major things it needed done right away, like a new AC compressor, without which the defroster could not be used at all (compressor would sieze and stall the engine). Sold the car in 4 days to the 3rd looker.

I guess it depends on a whole lot of factors...... I need more coffee...........

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I would. We see things as we like it. OK while we live in the house, but a small change can bring in thousands of dollars more in re-sale and/or get it sold much faster.

You may think black walls and a dark brown ceiling looks very cozy, but I doubt many home buyers will. Most don't look beyond the decor but instead are impressed with it immediately. Brokers see houses all the time and can help you become aware of any negatives so you can correct them. Thee is a show on HGTV (Designed to Sell) that is dedicated to getting your house ready for sale. Ed [e-mail]

[Doug Kanter]

Saw a house yesterday that had a really odd feature. The one-car attached garage faced backwards into the yard. The owners had built a deck with began in the back and wrapped around the side, eliminating any possibility that you could get a vehicle into the garage unless it was lifted into the back first by a helicopter. The computer listing said "attached 1-car garage". The listings for this particular broker include a place for a written paragraph, but there was nothing in that paragraph about the garage being useless to most buyers, and the photograph was taken at an angle which didn't include what most would've assumed to be the driveway side of the house. When I suggested to the broker that it was a waste of everyone's time to see the house without the missing information, she gave me sort of a slack-jawed look.

It was my broker's wife's birthday, so I'd told him to stay home for this one. At least it didn't waste time for TWO people.

Another house: Garage had a nearly flat roof, due to a bad architectural decision involving an addition to the house 20 years ago. Rather than rebuild the roof, the owners had added several layers of tar over the shingles. The weight had made the roof concave in the center, and collected water had helped, so the rafters were ready to collapse. Selling broker: "The garage may need a roof - we're having it inspected next week". No kidding.

[Joseph Meehan]

I would skip both the kickplate and stormdoor. Yea, the new people may want the storm door, but the hope will look better without one. Some people don't like kickplates and since they are an easy add on I don't think many people are going to really care if one is not there.

[Ian Stirling]

Most family photos. One or two show that it's a house, not a show-home.