Getting Your Home Ready to Sell - The Pitfalls of Home Repairs

Where do you draw the line when completing home repairs to put your home up for sale? 

Dirty, stained, chipping paint?? This is a must do home repair! 

Recommended Repairs

First let's talk about the things you SHOULD do before putting your home on the market! There are a couple really quick, easy, and low cost things you can do to make your home more attractive to buyers, and get you more return on your investment.  The absolute easiest way to give your house a face lift is to paint!  Now I'm not saying re-paint EVERY room in your house.  Pick the rooms that have dirty walls, or paint chipping (this is especially important when your home is older because of lead based paint issues and FHA financing). If you have 1 or 2 rooms in your home that are very brightly colored you could start there as well.  

When you are painting a few things to keep in mind.  1).  Keep the new color neutral (although it may not be your preference it will be easier for a buyer to envision themselves in the house and also helps makes room look larger and brighter).  2).  Wash the walls before you paint.  This will help the paint last longer, give it a smoother finish, and help freshen the odor of your home as well.  3). If there are any areas where the paint is chipping or there are visible drips from the previous paint be sure to sand out those blemishes before painting.  4).  If you do have a bold color on the wall, splurge and buy the paint that has a a primer in it, there are very few colors this paint will not cover in one coat (and if you're skeptical buy one of the sample containers for $2 and test it out!!)

The next group of must do's are what I like to call sale stoppers.  These are things that are going to stop, or hold up the sale of your home.  These are going to be things like water heater restraints and circuit breaker updates that are going to prevent somebody from getting financing on your home (these will be uncovered in the home inspection so you may as well talk to your Realtor beforehand to make sure you are in compliance with all mandatory codes). 

Tricky and Sometimes Unnecessary Repairs

Moving past the painting and sale stoppers......let's get to the flooring because this is a little trickier.  Hardwood floors that are scratched quite obviously and all over:  repairs on this

Scratched Hardwood floors can be tricky to repair

condition flooring is very hard and expensive, now you could replace it but again that's quite expensive and you run the risk of putting in flooring that a potential buyer may come in and tear out anyways, so then you aren't getting a return on that investment.  So I would tend to shy away from making a large investment like that (especially if those scratches are from pets you still own who could potentially damage the new flooring you put in).  

On the other if the scratches are minor, there are several DIY articles that can show you how to inexpensively repair scratches in your hardwood floors.  If that is the case, take the extra effort and make this minor repair.  That way if you get a nit picky buyer, there is less chance of complaint.  

Badly stained carpeting should be replaced

Carpeting on the other hand is a little less expensive and more important to replace.  A dirty stained carpet appears less hygienic than a scratched floor. Now again don't go overboard with replacing carpeting in every room, but if there are quite a few stains (and I'm talking even stains you know are hidden under furniture) bite the bullet and replace it. It's better in the long run because the more obvious and visible issues, the harder a buyer is going to look for other "problems" to help them negotiate on price.  However if your carpet looks clean and not worn I wouldn't focus on that as a project to take on.  Better to let the buyer decide which carpeting they want to replace.