When prepping to sell your home, we want to take advantage of opportunities to add value, while avoiding throwing good money after bad. Let’s talk about the small, inexpensive things we can do to make a substantial difference in the sale price of your home.
The first is painting—one of the easiest, fastest, and least expensive ways to get your home ready for the market. You’ll almost certainly make money by doing it. Most painting jobs add multiples of their cost to the final sale price, so it’s well worth your time to push your furniture to the center of the room and add a fresh coat of paint. Eggshell white, neutral, clean, and modern.
Similar to painting, stripping and resealing a worn hardwood floor—even engineered hardwood—with a neutral, matte finish will likely add multiples of cost to the price, at an investment of around $15 per square foot.
Bankrate offers a helpful guide to some of the most consistently high-return improvements for sellers.
Know When to Refresh—and When to Step Back
When it comes to kitchens, there’s a big difference between a minor and a major kitchen remodel. While a complete remodel starts around $50k, minor updating will likely cost a fraction of that and still leave you with a much-improved kitchen.
Minor remodeling includes updating appliances, replacing light and electrical fixtures, painting or refacing cabinets, re-grouting, and replacement of any damaged tiles. This is a favorable option for anyone whose kitchen was brand new around ten years ago and has weathered normal wear and tear. If a kitchen is decades old, best not to throw good money after bad—just factor an assumed renovation cost into your asking price.
While new bathrooms can easily run $30k, re-grouting, replacing broken tiles, and updating faucets and shower heads are inexpensive improvements that can greatly enhance the value of any bathroom that’s more than a few years old.
Few investments net a more positive return than hiring a handyman to take care of cracked tiles, loose handles, chipped paint, or scuffed floorboards. Buyers come across obvious imperfections and start wondering what else might be lurking. Something as minor as a burnt-out light bulb can needlessly sabotage our efforts. The Spruce has a good list of projects that often don’t pay off when selling.
When selling your home, we have to think like a buyer. We’ll make a real assessment of your property and what actually needs to be done. Aesthetic is as important as function. Buyers subconsciously make their decision within the first eight seconds they’re in a home, and our goal is for them to effortlessly imagine themselves moving in and feeling at home.
If you’re navigating a buy and sell at the same time,here’s my guide on how to manage both transactions seamlessly.
If you’d like an assessment of the smartest upgrades to make in your home, let’s talk more. This is Jacob Wood, your New York City real estate advisor.
