Real Talk with Cindy

What NOT to fix if you're thinking of selling your home? So the first thing I'm always going to recommend is that you have a professional agent who is active and working in the market come take a look at your home, before you start making any repairs, or corrections, painting, etc, etc, because they are going to be able to put that to-do list into perspective for you. I do it all the time. After you have your agent come and put some things in perspective, that's going to really help you narrow down that to-do list. But here are a few things that you want to keep in mind, as you're maybe making the to-do list to discuss with your agent. Wipe the slate clean of all those vanity fixes things that you always wanted to do but never got around to. We always wanted to hang this fantastic chandelier, or maybe you wanted to put wallpaper in the bathroom. The new buyers do list is probably going to look different than yours and if it's just a cosmetic fix, and it's not actually repairing something, you probably want to just leave that up to them. Determine if you're going to recoup the cost of the repairs or corrections or improvements that you're thinking of doing. Because often you're not going to get the ROI from that item that you would hopefully get. So this is again, where it goes back to having a good agent that's going to help you narrow that list down. Sometimes you really are going to get a great ROI from switching out your faucets, your lighting in your bathroom, or maybe putting on a new coat of paint. If you're looking at retiling a whole bathroom or doing a total renovation of your kitchen, just to sell usually the ROI is usually not going to be there. Don't worry about items that are easy to remove like curtain rods or blinds, things like that, often just taking them down is going to be enough, you're not going to necessarily need to replace that whole situation. Doing a pre-inspection sometimes it's nice, it gives you an idea of what sort of condition the kind of underpinnings of your home are. But if you know that you've always had an outlet that just never worked, you don't necessarily need to fix that before you sell. Odds are that's going to come up on an inspection anyway and sometimes leaving those inspection items up to the potential buyer is going to be a better idea than fixing a list of 10 things before you sell only for their inspector to come up with 10 more. Obviously, if there are major issues, you want to take care of those. You don't want to have faulty electrical, faulty plumbing leaks, roof issues, or things of that nature. If you can solve those before you put it on the market, solve them. And if you know that they're there before you put it on the market and you can't afford to solve them, you definitely need to disclose those to the buyer before you make that transaction happen. Finally, you probably don't need to repair cracks in your driveway, cracks in your sidewalks or patio, or things like that. Unless they are really really big major deterrence or safety hazards, you are probably fine to leave those alone. And just as my father would say, leave it for the next guy. Hopefully, those things help you as you're putting together that list before you talk to an agent. But don't forget, having a licensed agent who actually works in the market and knows what your market is doing, take a look at your home before you start making that list or making those improvements is going to make a huge difference. So make sure that you're not doing things that aren't going to give you a return on your investment or that are just going to cost you a lot of work and not give you any money in return. As always, if you're in the Richmond area, I'd love to talk to you. I'm happy to come to help you determine what things to tackle in your home. I don't care how well maintained or poorly maintained your home is there is always going to be a list of things that are going to help you sell and market better to get you the most amount of money and that's what I'm here to do.

Here are a couple of reasons why you may not want to buy a house in 2023 or 2024. The market that we're in is a little weird. And with rates a little higher property values a little higher, and things a little bit tighter in regard to inventory. It is definitely a little harder to get into homeownership now, if you are not already in the game, so to speak. So, the first reason that you may not want to buy a home in 2023, with the higher values and the higher interest rates is, if you are thinking you are not going to be in the home for at least two to five years. You probably want to wait and hold off on buying for a little while, given the interest rate and the cost of homes right now. And all of the fees and costs associated with buying a home your closing costs, etc. You may well not recoup the money that you put in, in that two year period, enough to make any sort of gain when you go to sell, if it is in two years or less. I am almost always going to say that time in the market is better than timing the market. So I talked to a lot of potential buyers, a lot of first-time buyers who are waiting for interest rates to drop. They're hoping that interest rates are going to drop and prices are going to drop. Those things very seldom happen at the same time. My advice to them is if you buy now, at a higher interest rate, you can always refinance later, but odds are if you wait to buy, those prices are going to be higher. So while rates may come down, prices will still continue to go up, because we're still in an inventory shortage. So buying now is going to give you more time in the market for that property to appreciate and your interest rate can always go down. I say that with the caveat that you don't want to buy a house on the market right now if you cannot afford the payment. Please, please, please do not spend every dime of your savings on the down payment for a house and put yourself in a position where you're not able to go out to eat, take a vacation, buy furniture, come up with the money for unexpected expenses like your car breaks down or somebody needs a medical procedure. Things like that are not worth getting in the market if you're not quite ready. So even if you're ready, even if you're thinking about buying a home, talk to an agent that you trust and talk to a mortgage lender to get a good idea of what your payments are going to be what your costs are going to be. And it's okay to wait if you're not ready. Just don't wait too long, or wait too long thinking that that dream home that you can't afford now is going to be affordable in two years unless you know that you're going to get a significant bump in pay. But if you have any questions about buying, I'd love to talk to you. I'd love to help you decide if now is the right time and what might be a reasonable way to get your foot in the door right now. So that dream home may be two years away but you've started the process now give me a call or send me a message I'd love to talk to you.