Return on Investment- Part 2 of 5 Series on Maintenance

Return on Investments Series- Part 2

Hello. And welcome back to our five part series on return on investment for home sellers. Today, we're going to cover part two, which is updates. So to review the five areas that home sellers need to invest in, in order to get the best return on investment for a successful sale are maintenance, updates, curb appeal, cleaning, and staging. Today, we're going to talk about the number two on that list, which is updates. So when it comes to updates, why would we do updates in a home in order to sell it? Really, it's because buyers today-We're not talking about buyers 40 years ago, they wanted to invest time and money in their house-We're talking about buyers today, wanting a move in ready home. They want to move in and they want to entertain tomorrow. They want to post those Instagram photos of their new house and show everyone what they just bought. The instant it closes. They don't want a fixer upper. It is not what the majority of buyers today are looking for. So keep that in mind, because really our goal, when we sell a house is to get the best offers and the fastest close is to appeal to the most number of buyers as possible. If what buyers are looking for is a move in ready home. We need to make that home move in ready. So that's why we do updates. There are probably three levels of updates that we typically are looking at. The first level has four things that I typically recommend. Those are painting-You are going to get a huge bang for your buck for painting. It's like insane. What a fresh coat of the right color pink can do for a house. I have seen houses, or I'll tell you one example that it's a house that had sat on the market with a different realtor for awhile. So I was a part of that process and it didn't sell, it was on the market for 60 days in a price point that should have sold. They changed realtors and that new realtor brought me in and we looked at what they needed to do. And the house was a phenomenal home, beautiful home, well-maintained, brand new kitchen. I mean, just really beautiful home and a beautiful area, but the walls were what was a color that was trending a while ago. It was kind of a butterscotch color. And so it just made everything a little bit dark. Where trends these days have gone the opposite direction. They're light, they're bright. So we recommend painted it. We got the painting done and it was sold four days later or went on a contract four days later. And that is the power of paint and yes, it was vaulted ceilings. And I was like, oh man, it's not the cheapest painting bill. But that house sitting on the market is costing that seller money. So getting the right color paint, getting it done, I've seen it work wonders. Okay. All right. Paint. The second thing on this level, one that we're always looking at is flooring. Do we need new carpets? Do we need fresh hardwoods? Make sure the flooring looks fresh, clean, and, ready to go. The next thing is light fixtures. It's a really easy fix to change out light fixtures. There's really affordable light fixtures ceiling fans that can transform a room from being, “oh my gosh, that was the nineties “welcome to 2022”. And then the final little update that we can do that has an impact and really has an impact for bathrooms and kitchens, which are very important to buyers is hardware and fixtures.

So faucets handles and things like that. Okay. So if those are addressed, then if the house is needs, it, what we look at, kind of a level two would be those things along with things like countertop backsplashes and tile. The reason we focus on those is because it affects the areas that are, you know, buyers are a big investment and really buyers make decisions on buying a house on which our kitchens and bathrooms. So kitchens you can really update, you know. I see beautiful homes, that beautiful cabinets that just have dated or tiled countertops, you know, it was done in the nineties. It was a thing. By changing that out and putting a new back splash that kitchen can feel like new. And then the cabinets, hardware and fixtures, you know, fresh paint. Now we have a move in ready kitchen that the buyers are going to be really happy with. The other thing would be tile on carpeted bathroom floors. So there is not a buyer out there that's going to walk in and say, “oh great, we have carpet in the bathroom” right?. No one says that. Um, pretty much, if you say carpet in the bathroom, I feel like if anyone's watching this, you're probably going, “ugh”, right? We don't care for it in the bathroom. So changing that carpet to a tile, the floor is going to be a wise move. The other one is back splashes. So we had a really strong trend and you can see it all over Colorado Springs is that Tuscan moment that we had 12, 15 years ago. You know, the city was exploding. We have lot of new builds that way our newer builds, but now 15 years later that look is dated and nobody wants it. So backsplash -changing out that old world travertine for something fresh and clean again, lighter, brighter is really what's trending right now. That can make a huge impact on how a buyer views the home. Okay. So that's level two. And then there's level three with updates. Of course, that involves more extensive rent renovation, not as common, but sometimes worth it. This is where crunching numbers does make a difference to know your market and know what you potentially can get. Renovating kitchens and baths, you know, bringing in a new kitchen can really, you can make a lot of money on doing that getting that done in your home. So, to give you some numbers on things like that, one of the listings that I've worked on, that was a level one, right? The paint flooring, fixtures and hardware kind of things that we addressed that buyer walked away with an extra 60 grand after costs were taken out.