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Spring Home Selling

by | Mar 8, 2018 | Uncategorized

Spring is just around the corner in Portland and that is the time that many homeowners are thinking about selling their home. I recently helped my parents get their home ready for sale and I forgot how much work goes into this process. Here are some things that I did to fix the home up that might be helpful for you if you are going through this process.

In December 2017 my Dad came to me and said he wanted to sell his home of 30 years
and wanted to know the best time to sell it. I did some research and spoke to two
Realtors and found out that March or April are usually the best months to put something
on the market. So we set a goal of going on the market March 1. Both Realtors gave
us ideas on what we should do to get the home ready and to get top dollar out of it.
The home was built in 1977 and had been updated some over the years but some
things still looked outdated so we made a list of important upgrades. We took a look
outside and the yard is huge but needed some love. We hired a landscaper to come in
trim all bushes, kill weeds and add new bark dust. He fixed up the lawn and just did a
general clean up of everything and came every two weeks to maintain it(Approx $1000).
We spent some time pressure washing all concrete and the exterior of home to make
sure it was clean.

The exterior paint on the home was in very good condition except where they had bricks
as some of the grout was falling out which may look bad on an inspection. We removed
the old grout, patched it and painted those areas only(Approx $1500). We decided the
home was also too dark on the inside and it needed some fresh paint on most of the
interior to lighten it up(Approx $2500). My parents had dogs for many years and they
had accidents on the carpet many times and the carpet looked pretty bad. We likely
could have sold the home at a discount with that old carpet but we decided to spend the
money and just replace it(Approx $4000). We also primed the subflooring to help seal
in the pet odor.

The Realtors both mentioned that one of the bathrooms looked very outdated so we
replaced the counter with a new solid surface top along with a new faucet(Approx
$1000). We also replaced many old door knobs, towel bars and light fixtures in the
home so they all matched(Approx $1000). We also replaced many outdated window
blinds and electrical outlet covers(Approx $500).

They suggested that we remove about half of the furniture and most personal items
such as photos to make the home look larger so we took loads to Goodwill or stored
things in the garage. Once all of these items are done we hired a professional cleaning
crew to come in and do a deep cleaning(Approx $300). Finally we had our Designer
Beth come to the home and spend a couple hours staging it all.

Overall we spent about $15,000 to fix the home up and make it look so much more
updated. Although this may seem like a lot of money and effort it worked out very well
for us. We put the house on the market asking $335,000 and sold it in two days for
$360,000. I think we would not have gotten anywhere close to $360,000 had we not
done the work we did. This market is very hot right now and people are paying top
dollar for homes that are well maintained.

If you need advice on getting your home ready for sale you can call Absolute Painting &
Power Washing and we can assist with many of these tasks or refer you to someone
that can assist.

Mike Hughes
Owner

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