Segment 3
How Much Lack of Updating Affects the Home’s Value
Barb Schlinker Radio Show
719-888-3736 | 719-301-3900
Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty Colorado

#coloradosprings #yourhomesoldguaranteedrealty #barbschlinker #realestatevoice

How Much Lack of Updating Affects the Home’s Value
Not every home is updated like a new home that is offered up for sale. Is it really important for homeowners to update their homes before they go on the market?
1. It depends on the price range. Most home sellers will command top dollar if the home is in good shape with no “Deferred” Maintenance… eg none of these issues:
a) Stains on Carpet
b) Broken wood flooring
c) Un-kept landscaping
d) Dated kitchens and baths
e) Dramatic paint, especially faux paint

I had one recent listing in which the faux paint was to give a Tuscan look, a very high-end home. The faux cracks in the wall looked so real, I had to photoshop the images to take them out AND when the inspector showed up he looked straight at them and said…” oh no, does it have structural issues?” We ended up having a bidding war on that home at $1.2 Million but I had to photoshop those fake cracks out of the images to attract multiple buyers. Then we posted a notice in the home that these cracks were just faux paint. Wallpaper. One of my favorite issues I try to encourage home sellers to address…There
●Wallpaper just screams…”I’m dated”. Many home buyers sell that as an extraordinary amount of work and expense.
●Most of the walls in this market are ‘textured surfaces’. If they wallpapered over textured surfaces it could be difficult to remove.

We bought a home to fix and flip once and it had a very heavily textured wallpaper. They were also smokers who tarred the wallpaper to the walls. It took weeks to remove and my husband never forgave me for asking him to do that for us. No more fix and flips for us😊 You are much better off having that wallpaper professionally removed, have the walls re-textured and painting the room a neutral color. Here is why: Buyers translate work like removing wallpaper, changing flooring, and light fixtures into tens of thousands of dollars in home value. It will NOT cost that much to do the repair.
However, buyers will call depreciate the value of the property by as much $100,000 to $200,000 in their mind if they make an offer at all.

Even those small decorating wallpaper borders need to go. This is an easy and inexpensive fix that will update rooms and baths quickly as far as how much it affects the value. If the home is price under $300,000 they just want ‘move-in ready’ but they may not need to be updated. Above that, buyers are very picky. You can still buy a brand new home under $400,000. And a brand new townhome under $300,000 with a 2 car garage. You have to plan on that being your competition. Part of what we do with our clients is to sit down and look at the competition to determine a strategy for updates as well as pricing. We can even help the homeowners, in some cases fund some updates and have them paid out of the closing.

A good of thumb is. If you can get a buyer to make an offer at all. Take the cost of the update and multiply by at least FOUR times the cost of the repair. That is what it will cost you, if you do not: Replace, tired, stained carpet updated kitchens and bathsThe only exception to that rule is if you Price the Home exponentially LESS than what it costs to do the repairs and buyers see the home as the best DEAL in that price range…