Oftentimes when we take on a new listing, the home needs a few updates. This doesn’t always mean major work, but it does mean making some key improvements, both inside and outside the home to help it sell. Take, for example, one of our recent listings on 11th Avenue in Redwood City.
Before putting this home on the market, we recommended some prep work. Updates can really pay off when it comes to the final sales price. This means not only deep cleaning a home to make it shine but also freshening it up in a way that makes it more appealing to buyers. Often, you don’t have to do major projects, but the little ones can certainly add up and make a difference.
On the outside of the home, we helped the home’s curb appeal by adding some fresh mulch and new flowers. We also added a new coat of white paint to the fence. Because so many homes in this part of the Bay Area were built in the 1940s and 1950s, we find a lot of old cement that tends to settle over time. Instead of completely redoing the outside walkway, we freshened it up with a coat of grey cement paint. It really made the home look nice in terms of improving its curb appeal, but we didn’t have to spend a lot of money or do a lot of work.
Inside the home, we brought in painters to patch up any holes and cracks in the walls, smooth them out, and add a fresh layer of paint. We also repainted the fireplace. The home still has some of its original hardwoods, so we brought in a crew to sand them down, and re-stain them. Buyers really like this. Again, we didn’t have to replace the floors, we just had to freshen them up and give them new life.
It’s possible to make an old bathroom look nice and clean again without tearing everything out. In this case, we did add some new luxury vinyl flooring to the home’s bathroom. We also smoothed out and repainted the walls, and did a grout renewal. It’s an easier and less expensive way to freshen up old tile. You can even easily change the color of the grout. We did the same thing in the standup shower, plus we cleaned up the tub and added a new light fixture. New lighting is another simple way to make a home feel fresh and modern, plus it’s cost effective.
In the kitchen, we brought in new stainless-steel appliances and painted the existing cabinets white. The old countertops were still in pretty good shape, so we lightened them up with grout renewal. Some of the tile flooring in this part of the house wasn’t salvageable, so we took it up, evened out the flooring, and again used new luxury vinyl flooring to freshen up the space.
In the backyard, we added a clean coat of grey paint to the deck, cleaned up an existing pathway, and put down some fresh mulch. The backyard had a lot going for it, already. A massive Redwood tree sits in the corner of the yard, so we left it. We were also sure to leave a large old Wisteria that stretches over the deck. It’s beautiful when it blooms and adds a lot of appeal to the backyard space.
When it comes to putting a home on the market, freshening up a few things inside and outside the home can really help with the selling process. In this case, we were able to make the home more visually appealing, but also create a fresh, almost blank slate for new buyers. Our updates were modern, but also neutral enough to allow buyers to come in and visualize what they want out of the home, and hopefully put in a good offer.
