Fix up a home before putting it up for sale, or sell it more-or-less just as it is? This is one of the perennial questions facing every Silicon Valley homeowner when they begin to plan the sale of their home.
These days the public has the perception that every home should be made to look like it belongs on the front page of Better Homes and Gardens magazine before it hits the market. We can thank Reality TV shows like Million Dollar Listing and HGTV for this.
The reality is starkly different from what is portrayed on television. Most homes in Silicon Valley are decades old and were built in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of these homes are in more-or-less original condition.
Others will have been built or updated twenty or thirty years ago, yet most homebuyers would still consider them to be “cosmetic fixers” – projects that they would prefer not to take on.
There are few people with the time, skill, and energy to take on home repairs themselves these days. When home buyers encounter these houses which “need” work, they immediately see dollar signs…and risk, and hassle they’d rather avoid.
Homeowners need to understand that today’s Silicon Valley homebuyer has a strong preference for “move-in ready’ homes, and many of these buyers are willing to pay a premium for them.
But how much of a premium will they pay? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer for that question. It varies considerably from neighborhood to neighborhood and house to house.
Each home needs to be individually assessed to see what improvements could be cost-effectively made to have the greatest return on the fix-up investment. However, one rule of thumb is that the least-expensive projects generally yield the biggest “bang for the buck.”
For example, simply removing clutter, bric-a-brac, and unnecessary furniture might only cost a few hundred dollars, but could easily add tens of thousands of dollars to the sale price. Likewise, sprucing up the landscaping might cost $3,000 but could improve curb appeal and boost the amount of light entering the home, augmenting the sale price by five times that amount.
Adding a fresh coat of paint of replacing outdated and worn-out flooring is also relatively easy to do; $20,000 in new paint and floors could reasonably be expected to boost the sale price by $50,000 or more (depending again on the home, neighborhood, etc.).
Fortunately for homeowners, the more-expensive improvements, like replacing old windows, typically do not offer a high return on investment. That’s because the home already has windows, and those windows have considerable value. Therefore spending $30,000 for new windows might only return add $35,000 to the sale price, making these kinds of improvements a lower priority for the renovation dollar.
About Seb Frey
Seb Frey has been serving the Silicon Valley Real Estate market since 2003 and is an expert in helping homeowners maximize their cash out on sale through targeted repairs and improvements. You can find out about his services at https://SebFrey.com/
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