Is It Worth Paying For Refurbishments When Selling Your Home?
One question that many home sellers have to consider is whether it is worth refurbishing their home before selling.
Whether your home is an old building facing insulation problems or you require a fresh coat of paint on the ceilings, deciding whether to splash your cash to get your home sold is not always an easy choice to make.
On the one hand, your potential buyers may want a fixer-upper to make their own, but on the other hand, your buyers may want a fresh home that is ready for living in and making memories.
Additionally, some home amendments can ultimately increase the value of your home, so the question of what your desired return would be is also something that needs to be considered.
Things to consider
If you are stretching your head as to what you should be doing with your home, ask yourself the following questions:
How likely is your house to sell?
First and foremost, you need to take into consideration how likely your house will sell. In this, you must consider economic factors, in addition to location factors and how desirable the location of the home is.
If the economy is struggling and people are getting approved for mortgages less and less, you may be less fortunate in terms of the time you are selling your house.
In this case, you may want to leave your home for investors to buy to add value and sell on themselves.
Or perhaps you may need an extra wow factor to get your house sold in this low-demand market.
Also, if your house is close to many popular schools and essential vicinities, perhaps your home will be more likely to sell.
What are your competitors’ conditions?
Additionally, you need to assess your competitors’ home conditions.
This means looking at homes in your local area that are also up for sale and seeing if they are refurbished to a high standard or still selling for a desirable end price without any improvements.
If any of the homes in your local area seem modern and your home needs some small changes to bring it up to standard, you might consider doing this yourself.
If there are large house price differences between your home and the ones that have been done up, you also might consider adding these changes to increase the value and achieve a better end sale price.
A coat of paint won’t do this, as this may require more intricate changes, such as new windows, a new boiler, and possible building extensions.
Who is your realistic buyer?
You also need to consider who your ideal buyer is. If your area is popular for families, you may want to refurbish your home and assume that they would rather move into a home that is ready to live in straight away.
If your area is becoming popular for young couples, you may wish to leave the house as it is so they can make it into their own home, as they will be applying these changes regardless.
Does your home look run down?
Ask yourself the honest question, is your home looking poor and unkept?
At the bare minimum, your home should be clean and without majority faults at the time of selling.
If your home has issues such as dampness and mold, you might wish to attend to this problem straight away.
On the other hand, if your home is well-kept and there is no value to be added, changes such as adding luxury homeware into the space can elevate the design presence and make it look more inviting when buyers come for viewings.
Do you have the finance to spare?
Finally, you need to be realistic with your finances. If you are deciding to make refreshments, you need to assess what finance you have available to do so.
Eating into your retirement fund should not be an option if you have poor finances.
Review your current expenses and savings and set a budget for the max you wish to spend on your refurbishment.
You should only allow for a bigger budget if there is a lot of value to be added, which would create an interest on your return of investment.
Bottom line
By asking yourself all of these questions, you will conclude whether it would be worth selling your home.
You might add lots of changes and refurbishments to boost your home’s value, but this should only be done if you have a good comparison of a local home that has also done this successfully.
On the other hand, you might wish to sell quickly and therefore leave the changes to be made by the new homeowners.
Whatever you decide, make sure that it is an educated decision.
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Category: Home Improvements
