It took me two years from starting decluttering and fixing up to get my house ready to put on the market. Then it is like living in a furniture store while it is on the market. 
It finally sold after I’d moved out. I had some disclosures due to mold and water leaks in the past that made it imperative that it be squeaky clean and desirable otherwise.
It depends on where you live. My neighbor’s kitchen had the original finishes from 16 years ago. I thought it would deter buyers from wanting to pay their price but it didn’t.
We are in the process of updating our kitchen - most of our money is going there and changing the fixtures in the bathrooms. Those are the rooms I, as a potential buyer, look at first. And when we are ready to sell, I’ll be paying someone to clean the whole house. I’m not good at that.
We lived in a major tear down market and I used to say our house was tearing itself down. It was in a really really prime location. I had been in touch with developers over the years so when it came time to sell, I got back in touch with a number of them and one said, “I’ll give you $5000 over your highest bid.” And he did, which was $20,000 over my target. Along the way DH wasn’t convinced that we couldn’t sell the house for living in, so we had a Realtor come over. She agreed that the cost of fixing it up, and/or the concessions we’d have to make, would take it below what a developer would pay. So we sold direct to the developer, no commission, no listings, no clean up, and he had so many projects that he agreed to a six month rent free post possession agreement.
And yet DH was literally packing boxes while the movers were loading the truck.
Also DS had boomeranged back home and stayed with us even after he began working full time. So I kicked the birdie out of the nest for the second time, then had the nest torn down.
I wish we could just find a developer to buy our house. All the mechanicals are up to date, but the decor and finishes are not. I’m not looking forward to what we’d have to do to get it sellable. DH and I also disagree. I’m willing to get less for the house if it means not having to do too much work to it. He doesn’t want to leave $ on the table, but I don’t think he realizes what we’d need to do to get the kind of $ he expects.
In certain markets, putting x dollars will get you x PLUS your investment. In others, it would be a total waste. Know your market or consult experts who do.
We own a lovely 1930s era property that needs a ton of work. It is in a very sought after neighborhood, but most houses are new construction after tearing down old homes. After speaking with some residential realtors, we have concluded we will not get our money back on our investment if we do work on it. We will probably end up selling to a builder, who WILL tear it down.
Our previous house only needed a small cosmetic touch to sell. We got our money back plus some because the house was in great shape and located in one of the best school districts in the area. We are updating the current house even though a builder would have torn it down and built two in its place (if not three) - we plan on living here for a while and think of the updates as an investment in our lifestyle instead of as a prep for a future sale.
Our American Leather sleeper sofa is 15 years old, leather-upholstered traditional three-cushion seat configuration, and quite comfortable as sofa and bed. Bought it at furniture store’s warehouse sale. Doesn’t look showroom-new, but entirely presentable as living-room quality furniture.
Our second living-room sofa elsewhere is a bench-made Baker Furniture sofa w/down-feather cushions, so comfortable it makes a good one-person occasional-guest bed. But it costs twice the American Leather sofa for same seating configuration.
We plan to talk to a realtor (or two) before deciding what work we should do on the house before we sell, but SisIL didn’t get good advice from her original realtor about improvements to make (or not) and her house stayed on the market for months with little to no activity. It wasn’t until they switched realtors, got better advice, and made some improvements that their house sold. We live in different states so our experience may not mimic hers.
If it was me, I’d probably interview 3-4 realtors.
Interesting thread - I am finally caught up!
We are upsizing here. We are going from 1600 sq ft to almost 3000. DH teaches in a location further out from downtown that he has commuted 45 miles each way to for 14 years now. We are moving a couple miles from his high school & he will have almost no commute. We can get more involved in the goings-on at his school on weekends & evenings. Because this area is kind of “out there” (but is a beautiful new master-planned community), houses are going for much less than the area in which we are selling.
It’s a 3-story home with almost no yard (just a small patio). DH will have the top floor for his office and a gaming table & when his loud buddies come over to game, they can all be up there while I’m two floors down. Also DH’s office is a cluttered mess, so it will be up there as well. I may never go up there!
Oh yes, interview a handful of realtors. Make sure the realtor is also someone you are comfortable working with. One realtor insisted on pricing our house for a bidding war. Well, Mr. B does not do bidding wars, so that one was out.
As far as I can determine, in my area it’s impossible to price so that there will not be a bidding war. We’re not intereted in downsizing, though.
@musicmom, just hire Chip and Joanna Gaines to overhaul your house before you put it on the market :-). As for me, nothing can be contemplated before cleaning out our basement!
The basement is our first obstacle as well. I’ve been pestering H about this for months (or even years). Our basement is unfinished. We have a lot of storage shelves, bins, boxes, etc., but its still pretty cluttered. We made our first dent this weekend. I promised H we’d do this in 2 hour chunks. We ended up working for 3 hours and probably only cleaned 20% of the basement. It was like a time capsule down there - Old pay stubs (how did we ever live on that $$), hideous clothes (even a maternity dress and my baby is 30), and many many gallons of leftover paint and stain that we no longer need. There is no way I’m carting any of this stuff to our downsized place, wherever that might be…
If you are cleaning up - you need to check out the bag a week thread http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1599005-the-bag-a-week-club-p1.html
I heard a good one yesterday. An empty nest family saying they are moving to “right-size”
^ For some people there seems to be some sort of stigma or something shameful about saying you are down-sizing, like it means you are being forced to move to a smaller house because you lost your job or can’t make enough money or something else horrible happened in your life to force you into this terrible circumstance.
I don’t really get why people use “right-size” instead, in virtually all cases they are moving to smaller houses.
If a growing family moves to bigger house, they never call it “right-sizing”.
I used “right sized”in my post #80 as a joke re DH saying the new house was much smaller. I first heard the term when companies started firing people. So all along it’s meant getting smaller.
I’m curious as to where this is. Here in DC/NoVA suburbs we know several people who have downsized locally or elsewhere and many more who are planning to. There is no stigma that I am aware of. Most people get that as empty nesters we are tired of maintaining too much space we no longer need.
Ditto.