Which Home Updates Are 2018 Buyers Looking for?

If you are going to sell your home in 2018, there are three home updates that will get you the best return on investment and help sell your home for top dollar.

Buying a home? Click here to search Northeast FL homes.
Selling a home? Click here to use our FREE home evaluation tool.
Call us at (904)-250-0805 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation.

What home upgrades will buyers pay top dollar for in 2018?

I’ve been speaking with sellers on a regular basis about the buyer trends we’ve seen over the last six months and what those buyer trends will look like in 2018 when it comes to upgrades on a resale home.

Of course, some sellers have no additional funds that they can put into upgrading the home before it goes on the market. If that’s the case, then I recommend that you declutter and stage the home as best as possible. That can be done for just a couple hundred dollars.

If you do have money that you’ve allotted for upgrades before you put your house on the market, these are the areas that buyers are responding favorably to:

1. Interior paint. Buyers respond very favorably to recently painted houses. The colors that seem to resonate the most with buyers right now are grays, blues, and whites that give the home a coastal look and feel.

You can use granite remnants to save money when upgrading your kitchen and bathrooms.

2. Updated kitchens and bathrooms. Most of these updates center around cabinetry and countertops. If you have the budget, change out your cabinets for white or white shaker cabinets. Granite countertops are very important to homebuyers. If you go to a local granite place and look for remnants, you can save a lot of money. Not all of the granite in your house has to match; it’s fine if the kitchen and bathrooms have different granite. You can create a nice look and save quite a bit of money by using the available remnants.

3. Update your flooring. If you have it in your budget, change out the flooring. Based on buyer feedback, I recommend installing hardwood floors everywhere that you can. You can also use laminate tile or new vinyls that look like hardwood to save money. It’s also important that you have one flooring surface throughout an entire living area. For example, if you are walking around barefoot downstairs, how many different flooring surfaces will you cross? If there is only one flooring surface before you open a door, buyers will respond positively to that.

It’s important to spend your money wisely. Make sure that your home is staged properly and decluttered first. Then, if you have the budget, go ahead and paint, make kitchen and bathroom upgrades, or update your flooring. Those three updates will get you a higher return than any other updates you could make.

If you have any other questions about preparing your home for the market, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

Wishing You and Your Family a Happy Holiday Season

Happy holidays from the Century 21 Coastal Team.

Buying a home? Click here to search Northeast FL homes.
Selling a home? Click here to use our FREE home evaluation tool.
Call us at (904)-250-0805 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation.

The new year is just around the corner. Thank you for an amazing 2017. From all of us here at the Century 21 Coastal Team: merry Christmas and happy holidays. We hope you and your family have a happy and safe holiday season. We’ll see you in 2018. To hear my full holiday message, watch this short video.

Don’t Limit Your Home Search to the MLS

Are you limiting your home search to only homes that are active on the MLS? There are other ways to find homes.

Buying a home? Click here to search Northeast FL homes.
Selling a home? Click here to use our FREE home evaluation tool.
Call us at (904)-250-0805 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation.

Are you limiting your home search to only those active on the MLS?

When we’re working with buyers and we do our initial consultation with them, one of the first things we ask them is, “Are you only interested in homes that are active on the MLS?” Most of the time, they’re not quite sure what we’re asking that question for.

Today, I wanted to share with you the fact that about 20% of all home sales involve homes that have never hit the market. They bypass real estate agents, going straight from buyer to seller and from seller to buyer. We want to show buyers how we can give them access to those homes that aren’t necessarily listed on the MLS.

The question you have to ask yourself if you’re in the market to purchase a home is, “Am I only receiving active updates of properties that are active on the market right now?” The only way to know the answer is to contact the agent who has been sending you the listings and ask whether or not you’re being given access to off-market properties.

20% of all home sales involve homes that have never actually hit the market.

Here’s a quick story on how we were able to give someone access to a home that wasn’t active on the market. The buyer had been looking for months in a certain neighborhood, and nothing that they liked was popping up. They were waiting to see which homesellers were going to put their homes on the active market.

But we didn’t want to wait any longer—since they knew that that was the neighborhood that they wanted to be in, we started knocking on doors of about five or six houses that they’d be interested in purchasing, even though those homes weren’t on the market. We asked the current owner if they would be interested in selling their home to one of our buyers. This is a common service we perform for our buyers to make sure that they’re not limiting their search to just what’s active on the MLS.

If you’ve been looking for homes and are finding it hard to locate the right property, you may want to step back and assess whether or not you’re doing it the right way. Do you have someone helping you create some opportunities where inventory doesn’t exist?

We’d love to answer any questions for you and show you how our team helps people finding properties that aren't active on the market. Feel free to contact us via phone or email any time.