Renovating Before Selling—Is It Worth It?

Does your home and current market conditions warrant a home renovation before you sell? Here are some things to consider before you start that large reno job.
Every day a homeowner asks the question, "should we renovate and sell or sell this home as it is?" And every day a homeowner gets the renovation bug and spends thousands of dollars on their aging home only to find that they really made no profit on the work after selling.
Do-it-yourself and home renovation is an extremely enormous market. And with all the inspiring shows we see on television each day, it is hard not to get the bug! Absolutely everything we need is available at the local hardware outlet - some of them even offer free reno classes.
All that is missing is experience. The experience required to select professional materials and not just buying what is presented in the sale catalogue; the experience to handle the difficulties of the job, to prepare the many different types of surfaces that people are confronted with, and the experience to know what can and cannot be achieved without specialised tools or without time to cure products or allow them to settle so that inherent problems do not affect how the finish performs over time.
So what do you do if selling the home is intentional and a profit essential? You need to do a serious market survey and compare your home with what is in your street and area and what they had that you don’t. If you are the best home in your street, then you have already hit the top of your market and it will be hard to predict what you will get. In this situation you need to find a buyer who is simply as passionate about your home as you are, and hope that an emotional bid may allow your home to hold the new highest street price as a future comparative yard stick for others.
At the same time, a professional finish can be achieved with a very minor budget. It would be very worth bringing in a professional painter and painting the home in soft colours that provide a warm or cool contrast but do not dominate the colours within your rooms. Another low budget recommendation is to invest your budget in hiring new, fresh furniture for the auction or sale period, so that the furnishings are not tired and worn and can actually modernise the feel of the home.
In closing, your best bet is to have a serious chat with agents or the right people for advice on what is an acceptable limit for your renovation work given the area you live in. Remember, everyone out there wants to purchase a bargain. And they all hold the same opinion about freshly renovated homes; that have already been purchased and redone by someone else in order to make the profit they may be looking to make also. Why not give your next buyer a home worth renovating! It might be just the thing that attracts them to it.