Many homeowners don’t want to upgrade their homes when they are about to sell them because they won’t be living in them anymore. Also, it’s harder to recoup the costs of the home upgrades. For example, a bathroom remodel for $21,000 will only recoup about $13,000. Most home remodels will recoup 50% to 80% of the cost during a home sale.
But you may be risking more by not upgrading and readying your home for sale. There are a lot of things that can turn off potential homebuyers. These include uneven walls, rough ceilings, and crackless flooring, all of which could be solved by plastering tools and equipment.
Unkempt Lawn
If your lawn looks unkempt and untidy, no potential homebuyer will want to make an offer for it. Make sure to mow your lawn and front yard before the homebuyers come for a visit. Even your real estate agent will suggest that you clean the yard first before hosting an open house. You have to spend only $100 to hire a landscaper to tidy up your lawn. Planting trees and flowers won’t hurt, too, if you want to attract potential homebuyers.
Paint Palette
That dark blue walls might be your thing, but it’s not exactly everyone’s taste. Many potential homebuyers will be put off by your personal color palette. Make sure to remove the brightly colored paint from the rooms of your house. Choose a warm neutral color such as taupe, beige, ivory, and light gray. You can repaint your walls on your own and spend somewhere between $200 and $300. You can hire a painter for about $400 to $850.
Popcorn-finished Ceiling
If your home was built in the mid-1980s, it probably has a popcorn-finished ceiling. You know what that is, don’t you? You see it on your own ceiling, as well as your grandparents’ ceilings. There’s an embossed design on the ceiling that is hard to clean but accumulate dirt so easily. Some popcorn-finished ceiling may also contain asbestos, which will be hard to remove.
Removing the popcorn design is a laborious and messy process. To sample the materials for asbestos, you’ll have to pay $100 to $150 per sample. The removal, repair, and repainting of the ceiling will cost $2 to $4 per square foot. If the asbestos needs to be removed, the cost will increase to $3 to $7 per square foot.
Wall-to-wall Carpeting
Again, if your home was built in the 1980s and 1990s, there’s a big chance that it has wall-to-wall carpeting. This is a deal-breaker for most people. They don’t want to take care of wall-to-wall carpeting. And since the carpet has been in your house for decades, there’ll be hard-to-remove stains. The smell will not be pleasant, too.
It’s a pain to remove wall-to-wall carpeting. You need professionals to do that for you. It will probably cost $500 to remove carpeting in a 500-square-foot house. To install tiles or hardwood floors, you probably have to spend between $4,000 and $8,000.
If you want to sell your house, you need to be careful with what you’re going to upgrade and how you’re going to recoup the costs. But you shouldn’t be too afraid to invest in home upgrades, especially if the upgrades will increase the chances of your home getting an offer. You could be pushing away potential homebuyers without you knowing it.
