To Renovate or Not To Renovate Before Selling
Written by Leigh Martinuzzi
Preparing your home for sale can make it stand out from the competition, sell quickly, and add thousands to your final sale price. To answer the question, should I renovate before I sell, I’d say maybe. It depends on several different factors.
When selling your home, the fact is that first impressions do make a huge difference. The ultimate goal of presenting your house is to iron out as many negatives’ the buyer will see and increase the positives. The greater you can make a buyer feel when they experience your property the more likely it is that they’d fall in love. This is usually what leads to higher than market prices being achieved.
Take a moment to look at your home from the perspective of a buyer. Walk in the shoes of the buyer. Look at the other properties for sale in the area and see how they compare to yours. Try understanding what the typical buyer demographics are in your suburb.
Next, take a pen and paper out and do an entire property walk from the front yard through to the back yard and note anything that stands out as a negative. Living there every day it becomes easy for us to overlook things that if improved could make a great difference. Note any wear and tear, damage and other points that might deter your target market. The key consideration is to do several things that will add the most value to your home without a huge outlay in time or money.
In most instances, major renovations will not be necessary. Again, do your research. Is it likely that your buyers will be happy to do their renovations? i.e. replacing a dated kitchen? Will renovations increase end offers or just cover the cost of doing the work? And will the renovation be appreciated by the buyer? Sometimes it is easy to present an area in a home as best it can be and allow the new owners to do the renovations that they will appreciate.
Renovations can cost money and sometimes lots of money. The question I’d ask is whether or not it will improve the end result. Will I get more back for the time and money I’ve put in? Clever renovations, ones that improve the value of the home effectively and at affordable prices can be worth your time if you know what you’re doing. If you can’t do a good renovation for low costs, it may not be worth your time, instead just tidy it up and present it well.
Often a simple clean and tidy up even for an older/dated home will make a big difference in the end result. Changing a few fixtures and fitting, fixing up broken items, and then presenting the home like a display home will go miles. If your home is cosmetically pleasing and the building integrity is in good repair, it’s unlikely that you’ll need to spend an arm and a leg to sell your home for a good price and in a reasonable amount of time. Staging and presenting a home is critical, renovations may not be.
Do your research. Consult with an industry professional. Understand and establish the current value of your home and then crunch the numbers. Do you think the cost of any renovations you are considering will add the same value or more to the end sale price of your home? If you’d like to speak with our team at MPG please give us a call. We’re here to help.
