Knowing your market is key before you renovate to sell and your first step should be to seek advice from your trusted local agents to find out what they'd do, or what buyers are looking for.
What do you tackle when renovating?
It depends on the areas letting the home down. It might be a dated bathroom, paint peeling from the exterior of the house or a poor floor plan.
The most popular building trend over the past decade has been open plan living however many of the homes in the New England area were built before the 1980s, back when home plans with compartmentalised rooms, connected by the main hallway were common and are still commonly found on the market.
Today, many homebuyers looking for homes with open floor plans find themselves in a tough position because newer homes with modern floor plans are in short supply and very expensive.
The good news for sellers is, many experts say spending money on a functional floor plan is worth it, so if you can afford to remove walls in order to make your homes space more connected its a great idea.
Removing a wall not only dramatically updates your older home, but combining living spaces is one of the best ways to increase the value of your home.
Ultimately, sellers want to make it easy for a buyer who would otherwise walkthrough, notice a poky living space, and mentally calculate a $20k remodelling bill. Where in fact, it might only cost $5k, but buyers typically overestimate their costs and factor that into their offer, or worse, walk away completely.
If you go to market with a house ready to live in and your renovations leave a buyer thinking, 'I don't have to spend a cent and I can just move in', you'll have better luck extracting more dollars out of their budget on the sale.
Photo Credit - JA McGregor Livestock and Property