Three Things Worth Fixing Before You List, and a Dozen That Are Not

Sellers want a list. Most of what ends up on those lists does not return what it costs.

Worth doing, almost always

Paint. Interior, in a neutral. The single highest return item on almost any property. It is cheap, it photographs enormously better, and it makes a house read as cared for.

Flooring, if it is bad. Not upgrading good flooring. Replacing carpet that is stained or worn. Buyers cannot see past it and it costs less than the discount they will apply.

The front. Landscaping, the door, the walkway, the house number. It is the first photograph, it is the drive-up, and it sets what buyers expect before they walk in.

Usually worth doing

Deep clean and declutter. Not a repair, and it moves the number more than most repairs.

Light fixtures. Dated fixtures date the whole house in photographs. They are inexpensive to swap.

Handling the obvious deferred items. The running toilet, the cracked outlet cover, the closet door off its track. Individually trivial. Collectively they tell a buyer the house was not maintained, and that assumption gets applied to the parts they cannot see.

Rarely worth doing

A new kitchen. You will not get back what you spend, and your taste and the buyer’s are unlikely to match. A buyer who wants a new kitchen would rather choose it.

A new bathroom. Same reasoning.

A new roof, unless it is leaking. Buyers do not pay a premium for a new roof. They discount for a bad one. Get it inspected, disclose the condition, and price accordingly.

Solar, windows, HVAC. Improvements that pay off over years of ownership, not at sale.

Anything requiring permits and a timeline. By the time it is finished the season has changed.

The rule underneath all of it

Spend on how the house shows. Do not spend on what it is made of.

A buyer decides in the first two minutes and confirms that decision for the next twenty. Everything on the first list affects those two minutes. Most of the second list does not.

What I actually do

I walk the house and give you a specific list with a specific number next to each item and what I think it returns. Sometimes the list is empty and the right answer is to list it as it sits. That happens more often than people expect, and I will tell you when it applies.

Call me at (310) 861-3459.