On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 19:33:00 -0600, "JimT" wrote:


"Red Green" wrote in message
...
For your Sunday reading...


http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate...te-homeimprove

I didn't read the article but it's what realtors have already told me. Make
the house look like the new owners can do with it what they want to. If you
have siding, roofing or painting issues deal with those, but renovations are
usually a waste of time and money.

Agreed. Landscaping, particularly in the front, makes it more saleable. Any
money put into selling should go into exactly what you say; make it look like
new.

There are exceptions. I redid the floors in my old house and it did make my
house more sellable. I don't think it drastically raised the price but it
probably did make the house sell a little faster. I didn't spend much money
because I did the work myself. I just took up the carpet and sanded and
refinished the existing wood floors.

Concur. We redid the vinyl flooring in the downstairs hallways,
kitchen-dining room, with bamboo. I replaced all the crappy floors in the
bathrooms with tile (though I did most of that before deciding to sell) and
had the house recarpeted just before we sold. I also went through the house
and pulled down all the woodwork and doors, restained and replaced what was
bad, and put it all back up. I wasn't working (retired, though not
permanently), so had some time. All in all, I put perhaps 10K into the
house the two years before selling it. All of it I would have done if we
hadn't sold, though perhaps not with the same materials on the same time line.
Do all the cheap things, but save the major renovations for the new owners.
Don't try and second guess what they want to do with their new house.

Paint is cheap. Paint a neural color - make it look new. They can paint it
black.

There is a house down the street from my house for sale I could have ready
to sell in a couple of weeks but it's going to sit for along time and it
just needs new siding and a fence fixed. Simple stuff like that is a no
brainer. It's a shame because it's a nice house and they are asking well
below market.

Are they in a bind financially? Can they have the work done, or are they (and
their agent) just clueless?