Low-cost Improvements for Sellers That Pay off Big Time

Have you been wondering what home updates to make to make your home in Lexington, KY easier to sell? Well, certain features are more beneficial in specific regions of the country (pools, for example, are real selling points in the hottest regions of the country, but not so much in the more temporate regions such as Central Kentucky), but in general, there are specific improvements that tend to pay for themselves and then some when it comes to improving real estate in Lexington KY.

The key to figuring out which projects are necessary and which are superfluous is this recommendation: keep up with the Jones' but don't surpass them. In other words, know which improvements have become more or less standard in your neighborhood and which ones would be considered overkill. Keep in mind, if you're just remodeling so you can enjoy your home more while you're living there and you feel you'll get a lot of use out of a new pool or hot tub, that's great, but don't expect those improvements to pay for themselves when you go to sell (in Kentucky, pools are sometimes seen as liabilities rather than assets and hot tubs are, nationally, one of the lowest return-on-investment improvements you can make).

How can you determine which improvements are typical for your neighborhood? Well, a real estate agent with experience in home staging can often help you with this (I was one of the first certified home stagers in Lexington), but if you'd like to perform your own research, go to neighborhood open houses or if you live in a newer neighborhood, get a few ideas from the model home in your neighborhood (model homes often have a few more upgrades than the average house in the neighborhood, so you may not want to incorporate every single upgrade you see -- just take note of the most noticable upgrades).

So which specific improvements will yield the highest return on investment? Let's start with number one: declutter.

Decluttering can be a difficult task to perform without input from an expert because it's difficult for homeowners (even me) to view our homes objectively and determine which items are perceived as extra, in-the-way pieces that will make your house seem cramped (hint: open and airy sells houses).

As a rule of thumb, you can generally count on removing approximately 1/3 of all your furnishings/decorative accessories to pare down your possessions to where they need to be to come across as well staged. Try to keep 3 feet of walkway between the main pieces of furniture in your family/living/bedrooms because you usually have at least two people walking side by side and the fewer places buyers and agents have to "squeeze" through to navigate your house, the better. (One of my pet peeves when it comes to arranging furniture in a house -- large pieces sitting at a diagonal in the corner. Unless you have a large room to work with, placing furniture in the corner just eats up tons of space and makes the room feel much smaller.)

As for decorative accessories, remove any and all personal photos, no matter how precious they are to you. The last thing you want is for sellers to spend time sitting staring at your personal pictures and wondering where your honeymoon was spent as opposed to spending their time focusing on the great features your house has to offer. And put the kabash on anything too flowery or feminine -- this may suit your taste, but it won't suit the taste of many buyers and it can pigeonhole your house as a "grandma house", which means many younger buyers won't be able to see themselves living there.

The second inexpensive improvement you can make is paint. Next to decluttering, paint is by far the cheapest way to make the largest impact on the appearance of a home's interior.

By now, you've probably heard the mantra that neutral colors are the way to go, but don't confuse neutral with hospital white, which reads cold and uninviting. Instead, think warm, soft tones like taupes, soft greens and golden tans, which add warmth to a room and update the feel of the interior while still enabling buyers with a wide variety of furnishing to imagine their things in your house. If you have white woodwork, you want your wall color to have just enough punch to it to contrast and play up your woodwork, but leave the reds, purples, pinks and bright blues to those who aren't selling their houses anytime soon.

Note how much bigger the room below looks after some painting and decluttering (along with a few new accessories and refurbished chairs from Goodwill). (Article continues below photos.)

The next low-cost improvement you can make is to rip up carpet if there are hard wood floors underneath. Even if the hardwoods aren't in perfect condition, they'll still give the rooms a more updated air than old, shabby carpet will and pulling up carpet is a relatively easy do-it-yourself task. (I've done it, so I'm sure you can too!)

If you're not lucky enough to have hardwood underneath your carpets, carpet, laminate and tile are all lower-cost options, with carpet usually being the cheapest (but never, ever put carpet in a bathroom!). When choosing carpet, go with something in the beige and/or tan family, which tend to hide dirt fairly well but also go with virtually any decor. Avoid grays and strong colors -- remember, we're trying to appeal to the widest array of buyers and Wildcat blue carpet, while it may be appreciated by some die-hard UK fans, won't likely win you any points with the majority of buyers who are worried whether their sofa or beds will blend with that carpet.

If you're just going to sell the house anyway, don't go for the highest grade carpet unless you're in a high-end neighborhood. If you get a decent pad, most people can't tell the difference between mid-grade and luxury-grade and occasionally you can even make low-end carpet work, though you may want to get the input of a realtor/home stager to let you know whether the one you're considering is a popular choice among current buyers.

The next low-cost improvement you can make is updating the lighting fixtures in your house. You can have the greatest paint colors in the world and fantastic, pared down furnishings, but if the light fixture in a room is circa 1985, the whole room will suffer.

You don't have to spend big bucks on your lighting fixtures either -- 2 bulb, flushmount fixtures in bronze or brushed nickel are usually sufficient for many rooms (no need for ceiling fans in most bedrooms, though if your master bedroom has a vaulted/tray ceiling, an updated celing fan can look quite nice) and at my local Lowes, you can usually get 2 such fixtures in a package for $20.

To keep costs down, consider hanging light fixtures yourself (or with the help of a handy friend) instead of hiring an electrician. Believe it or not, hanging light fixtures is actually pretty easy (black wire goes with black, red or white wire goes with the same color and the grounding wire goes with the grounding wire) just make SURE you turn off the breaker for the circuit you're working on. (Hanging a new celing fan can be a do-it-yourself project as well, though it's a little more difficult because you have to weight and balance the fixture so it rotates smoothly.)

And last, but certainly not least, is curb appeal, which is your buyer's first impression of the house. If you don't have strong curb appeal, you have a lot to overcome when the prospective buyer enters your house and there's no need putting that kind of pressure on yourself when improving your curb appeal can usually be done in a weekend.

Start by trimming all bushes, weeding plant beds and planting fresh flowers (or strategically placing potted plants if appropriate). Paint the front door so it looks fresh and new (realtors and buyers will spend up to 30 seconds or more standing in front of your door while the agent unlocks the lockbox and opens the door) and it's a quick and easy update. Just make sure you use a semi-gloss or gloss paint on your front door -- it holds up better under use and is easier to wipe down when you get fingerprints and other smudges on it).

Other curb appeal pointers include making sure you keep your grass trimmed and ensuring all the hardware on the front of your house matches (front light, door knob, mail slot and kick plate if there is one). If they don't, you can probably make some use out of a can of spray paint to make them all a uniform finish and give the area a cohesive appearance.

It can also be helpful to have some type of welcoming, seasonal display in the front of the house if there's room. Two of the houses of mine that have sold the fastest (both sold in 2 weeks for full price) were homes I had on the market in late fall/early winter and I was able to put a creative display of pumpkins, winter vegetables, indian corn and a little hay onto the front porch, which presented a very warm and polished first impression. Buyers were wowed from the get-go and we ended up getting multiple offers on both houses (yes, even in this tough buyer's market) and the sellers were thrilled.

If you have any questions about which specific improvements and whether they would likely pay off when preparing homes for sale in Lexington, KY, or elsewhere in the country, don't hesitate to contact me -- I'm always happy to help in any way I can.