I'm planning on selling my home this spring. Currently I'm doing a lot of
work to put it in as good shape as possible. The entire house has hardwood
flooring (common 2 1/2 inch wide oak). Currently the living room, dining
room, and master bedroom are carpeted over the hardwood. The carpet is in
pretty skunky condition, not terribly worn, but very dirty. I've had
carpet cleaners come in and it makes it a little better, but there's still a
lot of stains.

So my question is what should I do with the flooring to improve saleability
the most? I guess my choices a

1. just get the carpet cleaned

2. install new carpet

3. remove the carpet and refinish the underlying hardwood flooring.

My wife in convinced that hardwood is far and away preferable to most
buyers. Personally, I prefer carpet to hardwood flooring. I realize it is
an individual thing, but are there any stats that say, for example, 75% of
buyers prefer hardwood over carpeting?

The house is a contemporary ranch, located in central New Jersey, circa
1978, and has a full basement so these floors are not on a slab. Asking
price will be somewhere in the range $450K - $550K.

Thanks