What to look for if you want to bid low.
Good listing agents give their clients advice about how to prepare their home for sale. Some sellers listen - others don’t. Some sellers think they priced their house low enough that buyers will look past all the ‘issues’. Think again. That is rarely the case.
Those that don’t, offer buyers an opportunity for a deal because a poorly prepared home will attract fewer buyer and fewer offers.
As a buyer some things may turn you off that if you are looking for a deal you might look past. Look at what could be not just at what is.
Neatness Most homes I see with buyers are ready for company (company they care about). Others have unmade beds, clothes on the floor, food and dirty dishes on the kitchen counter. The lack of neatness can reduce the sales price of a home by over 10%. That is a deal for a buyer.
Exterior: Dirty windows, less than pristine paint, rot on windows, and broken sidewalks are common and give buyers pause. They make buyers think there may be other deferred maintenance that will come back to haunt them.
Landscaping: You have heard of ‘curb appeal’. One reason buyers sometimes do ‘drive bys,’ before they make an appointment, is to see if they even want to go inside. When buyers look at the home, if they see a poorly maintained yard it isn’t just the work they will have to do to get it in shape they are thinking about. They are thinking: What else didn’t the seller do that will come back to haunt them?
The kitchen: When buyers see a dark and dingy kitchen they are thinking - gutting it and starting over will cost thousands of dollars. For the average house it doesn’t take top of the line everything to redo a kitchen. If the cabinets are ‘ok’ you may get by with new counters and mid-level appliances. If you have old dark cabinets in poor condition - replace those too. When you see talk like “redoing a kitchen can get you back 90% on your investment” - it makes no sense. If you only get back 90%- why do it? In fact, what you get back depends on how much the kitchen was depressing the price in the first place and that depends on the current condition. If it is so bad that EVERY buyer will want to start over - it will return much more than 100% of the cost of renovation - so long as you don’t just throw money at your contractor. And the buyer is thinking: If the kitchen is this bad - what else didn’t the seller do that will come back to haunt them.
Bathrooms: You can look at a pink bath from the 50s and say it needs updating. Many buyers will accept that, though, before they will accept one that is ‘updated’ neutral and dingy. Dirty bathrooms are just creepy. If you have carpet (I kid you not) in the bath - get rid of it. If your sink is rusted at the overflow (common in old steel sinks) replace it (and the counter). Get modern fixtures at minimum. If the grout is dirty or broken the value of your house just went down and so did the chance of an offer.
Smells: More than any other one factor a bad smell affects how buyers view your home and how much they will pay. The hint of a bad smell is a sign that they think they will have to replace (at minimum) all the carpet and anything else that smell can get into. Pets are a major cause of smells that turn off buyers but an even larger one is cigaret smoke. If your house smells of cigaret smoke many buyers will reject it and not even think of trying to get rid of it.
Basement: Musty odors. Most buyers will pass. Ditto for any sign of water. Make sure the grading on the outside of your house directs the water AWAY from the foundation. Check your gutters. If they overflow - clean them. Make sure the downspout doesn’t dump water next to the foundation. If it does you WILL get water.
The Deal:The houses that many investors get cheap for cash to renovate and flip have many of the issues described above - so there may be a buyer for the seller- just not at a price they want to listen to - yet. And there may be a deal for one of my clients.
