want to sell house in two years

[MrsPete]

We would prefer putting in granite tile too, but in our neighborhood/area that would not sell well. Sigh.

If we were staying here forever that is probably what we would go with!

Dawn

Yeah, my next house will be my retirement house. We're building it out on our land in the country, and it'll be just exactly the way we want it. We don't intend ever to sell our next house. But until you reach that point, you've gotta consider re-sale.

 

[DawnM]

It so depends on the neighborhood, area, what prices things go for, what people expect.

Here, in the 200K range, laminate countertops are usually fine, 300K range and up, granite is expected. We even have friends who have looked at 300-400K range homes and said no to a home they really liked because it had corian instead of granite.

For us, the problem is that in the price range, people have their pick and if it is between saving $10K on a house without granite vs. paying for move in ready, they will pick move in ready to avoid out of pocket spending.

So far in this house we have put in two new heat pumps, new roof, new paint stain on the cedar siding, all new paint inside, new carpet in some areas and replaced with hardwood in others. We are currently finishing the unfinished basement, upgraded most of the bathrooms, and we will put in granite.

We hope to sell next Spring, so about 14 months from now.

Dawn

 

[HM]

retirement, Would you sink money into the house to update cabinets etc? or make a price adjustment later? We live in a rural town of about 2000 people

Our house has a new furnace/ac, new water/sewer line(city home, new roof, and rooms are painted neutral colors .

House is clean, neat and not full of lots of junk. (thank goodness for garage sales LOL). 3 bedrooms 1 bath. One huge upstairs that could be made into anything.

We purchased our house 40 years ago and have added on. Did lots of this stuff when we were young and not much money.


Looks to me the kids now a days want the best right off the bat .......
any ideas

tia

gail

We updated both our master bath and kitchen two years before we sold. We really enjoyed the new rooms for the time we used them and it definitely made the house show better. It also helped us to know what we wanted in our next house (which was built for us) as well. I say, go for it. Make sure that you use pretty neutral colors and styles when choosing.

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

I would not do anything right now. Wait until you are closer to retirement and then check what is "in" and sells in your area.

Yep. Also, whatever you do, don't slap granite on old/cheap cabinets. We bought a foreclosure this past fall and it has easily 10K worth of granite slapped on laminate cabinets. The cabinets are in such bad shape that I actually had to Crazy Glue the laminate back on in several spots. I guess that the previous owners thought that the granite would help the house to sell at an inflated price...didn't work, obviously. We have to replace the cabinets at some point (they're in tough shape), and I have no idea how we're supposed to salvage the granite when we do so. I'm guessing that some of it won't be salvagable...such a waste because it's gorgeous.

Seriously, clean, neutral, and decluttered goes a long way. Also, nice bathrooms are a plus and it can be cheap an easy to add a nice bathroom vanity with a granite top. We did this in our last house by getting a granite remnant from a granite supply place. They gave us a free sink cut, free edging, and free installation. The entire project including undermount sink and new faucets was under $400 and it made the bathroom look like a million bucks!

 

[DawnM]

That may be our next house too! We wish now we had purchased a smaller house for less, but hindsight, you know?

I fully intended to live in NC for 2-3 years and then move back to California. Now we have been here for almost 6 years and noone wants to move back but me!

So, we will sell if we can, and downsize price-wise but move onto more land. We have 2.5 acres now. DH wants 7-10.

Dawn

Yeah, my next house will be my retirement house. We're building it out on our land in the country, and it'll be just exactly the way we want it. We don't intend ever to sell our next house. But until you reach that point, you've gotta consider re-sale.

 

[SoonerSarah]

We sold our house just about 2 years ago in rather bad market. It took 8 months, but we had a 6 month contract with our realtor that we should have just bought ourselves out of. After we moved, she stopped working to sell our house. Once our contract with her was up, we sold it ourselves (without ever going back to the town).

Anyway, we did minimal work right before we sold the house, but we had made some minor upgrades over the years. We got a new dishwasher, new flooring in the living room, kitchen and bathroom, painted everything, new counters in the kitchen, new walls/window covering in the bathroom and updated lighting in several rooms. We had an older home with 3 bedrooms/1 bathroom. It was a nice little house with charm.

When we looked for a new house, we had it between 2 houses, one a newly remodel with more SF but no garage, and an older home with no updates, big garage and poor layout. Ultimately, we chose the newer update simply because the layout was better for what fit our family, and the house has 2 additional rooms. Renovations would have had to wait quite a while as I was 6 months pregnant and having some minor complications.

You can always price it at whatever amount and then say XX for renovations.

 

[SoonerSarah]

Yep. Also, whatever you do, don't slap granite on old/cheap cabinets. We bought a foreclosure this past fall and it has easily 10K worth of granite slapped on laminate cabinets. The cabinets are in such bad shape that I actually had to Crazy Glue the laminate back on in several spots. I guess that the previous owners thought that the granite would help the house to sell at an inflated price...didn't work, obviously. We have to replace the cabinets at some point (they're in tough shape), and I have no idea how we're supposed to salvage the granite when we do so. I'm guessing that some of it won't be salvagable...such a waste because it's gorgeous.

Seriously, clean, neutral, and decluttered goes a long way. Also, nice bathrooms are a plus and it can be cheap an easy to add a nice bathroom vanity with a granite top. We did this in our last house by getting a granite remnant from a granite supply place. They gave us a free sink cut, free edging, and free installation. The entire project including undermount sink and new faucets was under $400 and it made the bathroom look like a million bucks!

I completely agree with this, and also, don't go overboard. Do not over renovate your home. Sure, granite countertops would be great to have, but it's not something that I expect or will even pay for. Over improving on your home can end up costing you when it comes time to sell it.

 

[Muushka]

I agree with the poster that mentioned the area that you live in dictates what improvements to make. Sometimes laminate floors are fine, sometime not so much. Same thing for cabinets and counter tops. If all of your neighbors have upgraded, you may have to also.

I wanted to expand our cabinet space and add a wall of them in the breakfast area. Also our kitchen cabinets are the white ones, but the laminate stuff has started to buckle on a few. Not a big deal now, but in the future it would get worse.

I had a contractor come out to evaluate our current kitchen and the new work to be done. He said that honestly, if we wanted to sell our house we would have to replace the kitchen cabinets and counter tops too.

So, new kitchen, granite and new wall of cabinets starting next week.

That being said, we plan on staying here for several more years so that the improvements we are making, we get to enjoy them.

 

[werntonb]

Good thread, we want to sell here in a couple of years, too. Relocate to a smaller home, somewhere less expensive...... Like the OP, I am trying to make decisions that make sense with this in mind.

My biggest expense, that MUST be done, is the flooring in the entire house. We have the 16 year old, light beige, builders grade carpet that came with the house when it was new. 4 kids, 3 dogs, and a few cats later, it is SHOT! The dogs even chewed out patches of it when they were puppies (it was already trashed by then anyway). I think we have to do all hardwood on the first floor to get this house sold. I am undecided about the 2nd floor. I am leaning towards all hardwood though. I think any carpet we choose may not be liked buy a buyer, and who knows they could have allergies. I think we can keep the floors ready to show a little easier. What an expense.....

I have white (worn) kitchen cabinets, that I think I can paint. If not, just new doors......

You can save much money if you are going to use a recycle materials. That's what I did when a renovated my house and just repainted it.

 

[mtblujeans]

I saw something on the Today Show a few weeks ago that advised not to "outdo" your neighbors. A house can be limited by the neighboring houses and adding to it so that it is "more" than the surrounding houses in the neighborhood will not necessarily get you more for your house when you sell it.

I found this information interesting as we would like to sell in the next couple of years, too, and we were thinking of building a garage and a big barn on our property (we live in the country). But, we have an older double wide trailer and a modular home as neighbors and building up this property would make our property substantially different from the neighborhood and we wouldn't necessarily get our money back for those additions.

 

[minnie1928]

want to sell house in two years

List it now....

One of my best friends just accepted an offer on their house for 97% of asking price. It sold in 10 days.

 

[bellarella]

It depends on what the norm is for your neighborhood.

The suggestion to go to open houses was a good one -- see for your self what has been done to homes in your price range.

Since you think your house would be a starter house, you probably do want to do updates if your house is out of step with your comps. People buying their first home often do not have the money to make changes. It's not just a "greed" thing -- it is also the reality that people tend to move more now than in the past and there can be a real concern about buying a home that "needs" updates to be comparable with other homes in a neighborhood. They don't want to be caught in a spot of not being able to fix the house up enough to have to sell it themselves.

Also, people tend to both over-estimate the price of renovations and value their own time highly. These factors tend to combine to have offers come in at more of a discount than it would cost you to do the updates yourself.

For example, when we sold our last house, we were at a price point and neighborhood that was borderline for having granite in the kitchen. We had a lot of counter space in our kitchen and when we asked friends how much they thought it would cost to put it in, consensus was right around $10,000. We worked with someone our realtor worked with a lot and put in very nice, neutral granite in for $3,000 (and our house sold literally with the first showing after we put it in). It looked like we had spent $10-15,000 updating our kitchen and we spent $3500 for granite, a new sink and faucet and new drawer pulls.

On the time issue, our moves have tended to all be either ones that involved a long distance move or small children. This makes a house that needs a lot of updates really unappealing. While it is a pain to do updates to a house you've lived in for awhile, it is a lot easier than doing them when you have just moved in. If you have a buyer that has the luxury to live somewhere else and do updates with a vacant house, this won't be an issue, but in this market, I wouldn't cut your pool down.

Finally, I know that in a lot of areas home values are really down. As a seller, you often need to meet a certain "level" just to get looked at. If a house down the street is a fabulous bargain and updated, and yours is only a slightly cheaper fabulous bargain, I think most buyers will go with the house that doesn't need a lot of work, because they are still getting a great deal.