Home Upgrades That Are Worth It When Preparing to Sell
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
By Bill Primavera
When it came time for my wife and I to sell my last home which, as empty nesters, we found much too big for our needs, we were in a tizzy about which upgrades to enact to make the property more appealing to a greater number of buyers.
I should state from the outset that we owned the kind of home that doesn’t appeal to everyone: An historic landmark home, built in the 1700s. We needed to take measures to have it appeal to people who weren’t necessarily looking specifically for an historic home as we had been when we bought it. I remember one real estate agent couple who, when told to show us only “old” homes, that our first day together was spent looking at homes built in the 1950s. We actually got mad at them.
In those days from the dark ages, there was no internet to give us advance details about any property. There were only big three-ring binders with printed listings, sometimes with only one photo attached. Goodness, how did anyone easily find the home of their dreams with that system?
At any rate, our first order of business was to get rid of all features that would be considered highly taste specific. Most notably was the need to address our penchant toward having wallpapered every room in our house. Asking a buyer to accept somebody’s else’s taste in wallpaper is too much to ask. Especially at a time when wallpaper had fallen out of favor as a decorating choice.
So down came all wallpaper, revealing scuffed-up walls that needed to be sanded and painted. We chose to paint every room an off-white, which literally was as vanilla a choice as possible.
To the point mentioned above (and I’ve told this story several times in this column), the first time I was allowed to pick my own color for my bedroom when I was 14 years old or so, I chose a deadly color of bright red which looked like fresh blood splashed on the walls. When my parents put that house on the market, potential buyers would cry, “Yikes” when opening that bedroom door.
Our next move was to sand and refinish all the flooring which had taken a beating in all the years we lived in the house. When my wife viewed the results, she asked, “Why did we wait until we’re moving to do this?”
The kitchen was our next focus. Somewhere I had read that usually a wife is the person who ultimately makes a decision about a home purchase and the room that most influences her decision is the kitchen, both for design and appliances. We responded to that claim by putting down a new quality floor in the kitchen and replacing the stove and refrigerator, both of which had done yeoman work through the years.
Probably the most important upgrade we made involved subtraction rather than addition or substitution. We unloaded about one-third of the furniture in our living room and center hall, resulting in a more spacious impression to the visitor.
And, finally, the importance of curb appeal cannot be overemphasized. What a prospective buyer sees from the street can either encourage them to look inside, or want to run. The most discouraging response from a buyer is , “Let’s keep going.” One of the top considerations in upgrading to sell is to consult with a landscape planner or architect to make any upgrades needed to the outdoor features of the home.
Bill Primavera is a Realtor® associated with William Raveis Real Estate and Founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc., the longest running public relations agency in Westchester (www.PrimaveraPR.com, specializing in lifestyles, real estate and development. To engage the services of The Home Guru and his team to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.
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