Trulia came out with a great article.
10 simple ways to add $30 - $50K to your home's value.
Here are the top ten.
Goal: Spend less than $10,000 and attract buyers who are willing to pay $30,000-$50,000 more for “move-in ready.”
Have A Professional Come Out: Free
An agent will help guide you through the right steps to make your home sell for the most amount of money. Make sure your agent doesn’t want to “expedite” your home sale before you have a chance to make the simple fixes to increase the value of your home.
Deep Clean: $300
Make sure your home is spotless. This includes places most overlooked like the oven, grease on the range hood, and baseboards. Consider hiring a cleaning company for a few hundred dollars to come out and make your house shine. While a super clean home does not literally boost your home’s value as much as other things, it will make a great first impression.
De-Clutter: $150
Clutter and clunky furniture make a home feel small. Less is more when it comes to selling your home, so consider making room in your garage or rent a storage unit and get rid of any extraneous furniture items.
Paint: $1500
Only paint the walls that need it, and clean the others if needed. If you have baseboards, definitely paint those. Go through your home and decide which rooms will need paint and which should just be cleaned or left alone. Don’t get too carried away because many new homeowners will decide to paint anyways.
Fixtures, doorknobs, light switches, outlets, and other small repairs: $500
Make sure that every little fixture, door knob, light switch, and outlet are all intact, clean, and in working order. On their own, these small repairs may not seem important, but those small things will add up to create the impression that your home has been neglected.
Homes sold in the winter sell for 1.2% more money.
For a few hundred dollars, you can hire a gardening service to come out and remove weeds, clean up planters, plant some flowers, throw down some lawn seed + fertilizer, and make the outside area look great and presentable.
Ditch The Popcorn Ceilings: Avg. $2500
Popcorn ceilings are very outdated and may contain asbestos. Buyers already know this and can easily be turned away because of potential hazards. It’s recommended that you hire a company to do this because it can get very messy and possibly dangerous. Most companies charge $1-$3 per square foot.
Small Bathroom Upgrades: Avg. $2000
One bathroom can be upgraded for around $750 and can add much more value to your home. Make sure to go simple here because you’re just looking to upgrade your bathroom to look new.
Clean Carpets: $200
Some real estate agents advise against replacing your carpets because those are the first thing new homeowners change. At the same time, old dirty carpets are a turn off. Consider hiring a carpet cleaning company for a couple hundred dollars to come out and clean the carpets. Or even better, rent a rug cleaner machine from your local supermarket for under $100 and do it yourself.
Inspections: $750
Not every home improvement is cosmetic. Deteriorating roofs, termite infestation or outdated electrical systems — you can’t fix it if you don’t know it’s broken. Hire an inspector to check out the areas of your home that you don’t normally see. They may discover hidden problems. Small problems (such as a hidden water leak) can become big, expensive problems quickly; the longer you put off repairs, the more expensive those repairs will be.
Pricing mentioned in this article has been adjusted to reflect typical East Bay market costs for standard home preparation services. To read the full article please click here.
If you are thinking of selling and you're wondering what your home is worth, click here to discover your home's current value.
If you're thinking of buying, click here to take you to the local MLS, where you can see every home available in the East Bay market.
In the meantime, if you ever have any questions, you can give me a call at (925) 855-3432.
