GreenTree Blog

It's More Common Than Ever: Kitchens and Baths

It’s so often that we as buyer’s agents hear our clients say, “But we’ll have to redo the kitchen and update the bathrooms…”  Sellers know this and we know that what typically sells a home is the condition of the kitchens, and the condition of the bathrooms.

It’s no surprise that the most common remodeling jobs performed in 2015 were bathrooms (leading with 81 percent) and kitchens (79 percent).  As selling agents, we often hear our clients worries with remodels, the extent of remodeling and the costs.  Remodeling your home for sale, and remodeling your home for your own personal use, are very different, so we’re giving a few of our tips below:

  1. Decide what your goal is.  If your goal for remodeling is to earn top dollar for your home when you go to sell, then updating the kitchen and bathrooms is going to help you achieve that. The less a buyer has to do, update or fix once they move in, the more selling power you’ll have as the homeowner when it comes to the negotiations.
  2. Myth: you need to spend a fortune.  You’ll want to set a budget and pick the best returns on your money — i.e. functional, practical and appealing items in the kitchen and bathrooms that help bring the home up-to-date.  Think quartz, granite, butcher block and subway tile as opposed to marble, rare wood species and custom tile (though those do tend to add value).  Don’t go wild with colors, stick to neutrals, whites, grey and black.  Yes, we said black.  Black is very in right now.
  3. Tip: get three quotes from each vendor and pick the middle man.  The middle man will typically do as good of a job as the highest bid, but at the more fair price.
  4. Stage it.  If you’ve gone through all the work to bring the home up to date and appeal to current home buyers, you’re old and out-dated furniture may bring the value back down.  A home stager can help highlight the new upgrades and create a beautiful scheme that helps sell your home faster.
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