A situation most will have to contemplate as they move towards placing their home on the market is what will need to be undertaken to make their property “sale ready”. I can’t answer this for each individual from behind my computer screen. I would need to visit and provide advice in person. But what could be helpful is a case study of a property that was very successfully sold in the last couple of months with an itinerary of what was done prior to them going to market. This blog is a fairly simple mental download and by absolutely no means anywhere near to a complete list of what could be contemplated pre-sale. But if this helps you with your own situation in terms of ideas or helps regarding making decisions, job done.
Background
The home in question was about 25 years old. The current owners had lived there for about 5 ½ years. Not a lot had been done both since they had moved in or it had been built. During our strategy discussions, the owners made it known that they were more than willing to spend a dollar to make a couple. In this case I actually estimate they probably spent a dollar to make 4-5 dollars. There were a lot of easy wins to be had that not only increased price but attracted more interest and offers.
The owners had brought a new home north of Wellington where they were heading to live shortly. They wanted to hand the whole preparation process over to project manage. 14 + years in real estate gives you a plethora of cost effective contacts so I was more than happy to oblige (and even paid for some myself).
So, what did we do?
- An electrician was brought in to fix a couple of lights that were hanging out of their sockets. He also replaced an extractor fan that wasn’t working in the bathroom. The lights were an eyesore so it was common sense to fix these. The extractor fan has importance because if people flick on a switch expect things to be working. If they don’t it is definitely a “what else doesn’t work” mental note. This goes for lights too. Replace light bulbs.
- The carpet was 25 years old and was well worn. I personally own an industrial carpet cleaner that I often run over at no charge but my take was that this carpet was beyond “cleaning and sprucing up”. I whipped my carpet man in once some paint work had been done. This killed two birds with one stone as the creaky floors were able to be attended to while the carpet was up. Replacing lino in the kitchen and bathrooms was considered but disregarded. Note – spend a little extra on the thick underlay if you can.
- The owners had collected a lot over their relatively short stay. Much of which was not of any use to anyone. I personally made a couple of dump runs taking trailer loads of rubbish. This goes without saying in terms of preparation.
- The home was professionally cleaned top to toe. Again, goes without saying, no more explanation needed.
- A landscape gardener was brought in to trim lawns, remove weeds, cut back large amounts of growth, re bark and plant a few small succulent plants along paths. I think landscaping would be the most underestimated pre-sale job in terms of return on investment. Well worth doing. To achieve maximum effect, this could be something you need to think about months in advance as there are aspects to landscaping that don’t happen overnight (a full, lush healthy lawn as an example)
- A plumber was engaged to replace a leaking tap. It was decided that no other significant work was needed to the kitchen and bathroom.
- Regarding painting, often a low hanging piece of fruit, we decided that specific areas needed refreshing but others didn’t. Around the base of the fibre cement cladding was brought up to speed as was the bathroom ceiling.
- Staging, when I started in real estate in 2007 staging wasn’t really a “thing”. I cringe at some of the states we used to put properties to market in. Nowadays, it is often a crucial part of the arsenal when selling. Partial staging is also available if necessary. Because the home was going to be empty during sale we decided on staging as a logical form of action. Having furniture in a property has a multitude of benefits including but not limited to helping purchasers with spatial awareness
- The cleaning of the gutters, house and paths added the finishing gleam. First impressions do count.
There were other preparation ideas that were thrown around but were not acted upon. The end goal was to increase price as much as possible while minimising input costs to achieve the desired result. The end result is to present the property in a very well maintained condition. When a property looks very unkempt is when people ask questions. Bathrooms and kitchens etc don’t need to be brand new and the return on investment here is often not as good as some other spaces in the home.
Outcome
In the end, the sale price was well more than $100,000 above the top end of their expectations. It is always hard to quantify, but I feel like the small investment they made assisted considerably in this.
If you would like to engage in some pre market chat I am always only a phone call away.
