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Splurging to Impress Buyers
Jos¿ Rahona and his wife, Linda, made their master bathroom spa-like with floor-to ceiling tile, custom glass shower doors and sleek fixtures, at a cost of $25,000, to help them sell their D.C. condominium.
(By Elizabeth Festa For The Washington Post)
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Another thing on his to-do list is to replace the foyer's outdated faux slate with tile. "My nature is, once you get on a roll, it just continues," Compton said. "We are not going to move for a couple years, but I want to do the things we did do early on so we could enjoy it."
Spending big isn't always necessary, however. Jane Wilber, an agent with Re/Max Advantage in Silver Spring, said that a perky-looking bowl of fresh lemons on the kitchen counter is sometimes more cost-effective than a major redo.
"You can do gold-plated kitchen faucets -- it is not going to sell if it is not priced well for the neighborhood," Wilber said.
"I am not a big believer in redoing a house to put it on the market," she said. She recently sold a rowhouse that had last been updated in the 1970s. It was in Tenley Circle in Northwest Washington, a strong neighborhood for sales, she said.
She had the owner spend only $1,800, mostly for landscaping, and that didn't include replacing a fence that was falling down. There were "very, very few things that you are going to be able to do [in terms of renovations] to that house very quickly and recoup that cost." Still, the house sold for more than the asking price.
Braley said, "My feeling on the renovations and additions is that the seller has to be careful about how much they spend." She warns against expensive remodeling that features too individualized a look, whether with the granite or the tile.
"It needs to be proportional to the house price range. In other words, if you have a $500,000 house going on the market, you do not want to spend $100,000 on the kitchen and bathroom."
Wilber said, "You start with the lowest-cost things you can do to enhance value. You don't jump up to highest-cost things. It is worth new light bulbs. It is almost worth a new coat of paint."
As far as adding a second bathroom, she said: "If you do it cheaply, the value is worth more than the cost. If it is a third bathroom and you spend $15,000, then no."
Sometimes it doesn't take much to update the look. "You can get a very good, very presentable light fixture from Home Depot for less than $50," said Bette Gorman of Long & Foster in Old Town Alexandria.
Get rid of 1980s globe lighting, attach brushed-nickel fixtures, replace medicine cabinets and put in plate-glass mirrors to expand space in smaller rooms, Gorman advised. "It's amazing what some updated lighting will do to a space."
