Modern living room interior of a luxury home
It is really hard to decide whether you should remodel before you look to resell your home. A lot of it depends on the current selling market, if it is hot or cold, the condition of the other inventory on the market and how motivated the buying market seems to be. Unfortunately, there are so many factors to consider that we can’t really discuss them all here; we’ll leave that to your real estate agent. However, if you are looking to resell your home, while an expensive and custom remodeling project may not be a good return on investment, some minimum changes can be the difference between a bidding war and your home going stale on the market.
Some minor remodel fixes to consider are the cosmetic things that will really stick out to homebuyers when they come to look at your home.
- If you have any exposed holes in the ceilings or walls, take the time to patch them and repaint.
- If you are trying to promote your home as turnkey, a functioning and updated HVAC system is a must. Even if your home is priced $10,000 lower than another house on the market that has a functioning HVAC system, homebuyers will go with the working one to avoid the hassle.
- Fix and/or replace all appliances, leaky faucets, and light fixtures. You can replace all these things with cheaper, builder grade, lower quality things that will sell your home much faster than had you left these things broken.
- Some people may tell you to replace worn or torn carpet, but this may not be wise. The trend is leaning towards no carpet currently anyway, so there is no use paying money for something the new owners may immediately tear out. However, if the carpet is badly damaged or smells bad due to pets, smokers or neglect, it may increase overall buyer traffic in your home to replace it with cheap linoleum or hardwood that new owners could live with until they could afford a more luxurious fix.
- While people want to feel like the home has potential, you don’t want to leave up old or broken window treatments that may give too strong of an outdated feel to the home.
If you decide to proceed with remodeling before reselling your home, look for a local remodeling company that can help you keep your remodel as modest as possible while still giving your home that edge to help it sell. Be sure to discuss your remodel options comprehensively so that you avoid any troublesome surprises later on.
