Inevitably, at the end of a listing presentation, the question arises from the Seller whether to do some work or just sell the home as is. My answer is always unequivocally to DO THE WORK. The home gains more attention and thus more interested buyers that translate into competitive bids and will sell more quickly for a higher price. DO THE WORK.
You may ask “don’t buyers have vision?” No, they do not or they do not have the time to execute the vision immediately. Most buyers want homes that are done in the current style and which they can envision their lives in right away. Imagine you are a buyer reviewing homes online. You see a home that looks cluttered, dated with a mishmash of furniture. Contrast that with a home that has a stylishly painted front door surrounded by well kept landscaping and gleaming floors and fresh paint throughout and on trend lighting and fashionable furnishings with a unifying color palette and point of view. Which home would you want to go see immediately? Preparing a home well for sale is like dating. You want to make sure that the viewer swipes right.
But doing the work takes time, costs money and requires knowledge of what are the most cost effective items to execute to woo today’s buyers and then the ability to find the people to do the work and supervise the execution. My answer is to have an experienced agent who has managed this process before be your guide and project manager and have Compass Concierge front cost of the work at no additional cost to the Seller.
My own experience with this is that every time a Seller trusts me to help them navigate this process, the result is a home that receives multiple offers that sells over the list price in a short period of time. The type of renovations that return the most on time and investment ( ROI) are paint, staging, flooring ( wood and carpet), light and cabinet fixtures, countertops, and landscaping. Occasionally, homes need a bit more help if it is a particularly dated home but with Compass Concierge there is no excuse not to make the investment. To see a high return on your home sale, you need to invest in its success with doing the work. After the work is done, I can’t tell you how many clients then say, “I wish I had done this earlier. I love how my home looks!”