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Getting your house ready to sell can be a daunting task. You may know that you need to do some things to get your house ready to put on the market and have a huge list of things to do. If your house is older you know that you have to perform some updates to compete with other properties in your neighborhood that are for sale. So where is the best place to put your money? Kitchens and bathrooms. In this short article we will cover the first – kitchens.

Spruce Up Your Kitchen To Help Sell Your House Fast

The kitchen in your house is usually the most used room in the house (unless you eat out for every meal). For many families it’s where they unwind and talk about their day. Having a functional kitchen is a great way to spark interest in buyers looking for a new home.

So how can you spruce up, or bring new life into your kitchen? Bank Rate gives some great suggestions:

1. Make your kitchen really cook. The kitchen is still considered the heart of the home. Potential home buyers make a beeline for this room when they first view a home for sale, so make sure your kitchen looks clean and reasonably updated.

For a few hundred dollars, you can replace the kitchen faucet set, add new cabinet door handles and update old lighting fixtures with brighter, more energy-efficient ones.

If you’ve got a slightly larger budget, you can give the cabinets themselves a makeover. “Rather than spring for a whole new cabinet system, which can be expensive, look into hiring a refacing company,” says serial remodeler Gwen Moran, co-author of “Build Your Own Home on a Shoestring.”

“Many companies can remove cabinet doors and drawers, refinish the cabinet boxes, then add brand-new doors and drawers. With a fresh coat of paint over the whole set, your cabinets will look like new.”

If you’re handy, you can order your own replacement cabinet doors and door fronts from retailers like Lowe’s Home Improvement or The Home Depot and install them yourself.

Read The Full Article “10 cheap fixes to boost the value of your home” Here

Great tips, and ones that we actually follow. Many times when we renovate a property we keep the cabinet boxes and replace the doors and drawer faces. With that we also replace handles, lighting fixtures as well as the faucet. Something we also do is replace formica counter tops with granite, but this isn’t for everyone because this can really run up the cost of updating your kitchen. After you do all of these updates you may stand back and look at it, like it and think twice about selling your property 🙂

Kitchen Colors

This is something that you must consider carefully. The one thing that we always look at first is the size of the kitchen as well as it’s natural lighting. If the kitchen is small and doesn’t have much natural light the last thing you want to do is have dark cabinets and dark walls. It will make the kitchen more gloomy and feel smaller. Instead if it’s small and not much natural light consider painting the cabinets white and stick to lighter earth tones on the walls.

On the other hand, if you have a large and well lit kitchen you can have darker cabinets and walls.

We found an interesting article from Zillow about kitchen colors that really surprised us:

2. Blue kitchens and blue bathrooms

Beyond America’s obsession with lawns and all-around “curb appeal,” what’s inside your house counts a lot, too — especially the colors you’ve painted the rooms (particularly the kitchen).

According to Zillow’s 2017 Paint Color Analysis, which examined more than 32,000 photos from sold homes around the country, homes with blue kitchens sold for a $1,809 premium, compared to similar homes with white kitchens.

Blue is also a popular bathroom shade. The same analysis found that homes with light pale blue to soft periwinkle blue bathrooms sold for a whopping $5,440 more.

Walls painted in cool neutrals like blue or gray can be signals that the home is well cared for or has other desirable features.

Read The Full Article “4 Surprising Things That May Increase How Much Your Home Is Worth” Here

We never would have thought that about using blue. However we’re not that brave to jump on that band wagon just yet. We have seen trending for some time now the use of light gray throughout the home.

Summing It Up

The condition and look of your kitchen will most certainly affect how fast you bring in a buyer for your house. The biggest thing we can recommend is pay attention to the size and natural light in the kitchen before you make any decisions about the colors that you choose.

Remember, if you don’t want the hassles of cleaning or updating your kitchen, bathrooms or any part of your property, we buy houses in any condition and buy them as is. You can contact us for an offer on your property at (770) 756-8680.

If you are getting ready to put your property on the market one of the best things you can do to help increase your properties selling value is some maintenance or upgrades to your bathrooms. In this short article we will cover a few things that you can do on a budget as well as things you have to take into consideration when making updates.

Simple Touch Ups and Maintenance To Increase Value

Almost everyone knows that kitchens and bathrooms are what really set off one property from another. A bathroom can be a relaxing oasis for many housewives and mothers to escape a hectic day. For this reason you need to pay specific attention to the bathrooms before you put your property up for sale.

Surprisingly enough there are some things that you can do to help breath new life into your existing bathroom to help sell your house faster. Most people think that they have to do a complete gut and remodel. However, if you bathroom has “good bones” you will be able to save yourself a few bucks.

A few of those things were covered in an article by This Old House:

Brokers, one and all, say spiffing up the kitchen and bath is a sure bet for adding value to your home. Surveyed brokers say these kinds of improvements can get expensive. It may not be economical to do a major renovation if you are trying to spend as little as possible before putting a house up for sale. But some upgrades are cheap, easy, and fast…especially in the bathroom.

Replace frosted glass for clear glass, clean the grout, remove rust stains, apply fresh caulk, update doorknobs and cabinet pulls, replace faucets, and install a low-flush toilet. Even buying a new toilet seat can make a difference. Bailey says, “You can spend $500 on a bathroom, and it’s totally tuned up.”

Read The Full Article “Brokers Tell All: 10 Ways to Boost House Value” Here

Great tips, especially for being able to spend $500 or less to breath new life in to a bathroom in a house that you are getting ready to sell. However, if you do plan on replacing the toilet make sure that it is something that you feel comfortable with, or higher a professional. If a toilet is not installed correctly – well it can be a real mess and end up costing you much more!

Things To Take Into Consideration For Major Remodels

Your bathroom might just be to outdated to just “put some lipstick” on to make it appealing to a potential buyer.  Your bathroom may have green or pink tile from the 60’s or 70’s and you need to perform a major renovation before putting the property on the market.

It can be a real hassle, and the last thing you want is to get it all done and not end up with a product that is NOT functional. Some things that you have to think about before starting your project was covered by Zillow in a short article:

Mistake 1: Ignoring proper spacing and layout

Bathrooms may seem straightforward, but a lack of spatial awareness in the renovation planning stages can lead to problems down the road.

Remember: Just because you can fit something into the bathroom design doesn’t mean it can function within that space. Always keep function in the forefront of your mind and in your design.

For example, if you choose a shower with a door, your bathroom layout should leave plenty of room for it to fully open. No potential home buyer will want to squeeze out of a partially opened shower door every morning. Other considerations include providing enough space to comfortably get on and off the toilet, open cabinet doors, etc.

Spatial considerations also include making sure elements of the room are close enough together to function. For example, the toilet paper holder should be within a child’s arm’s reach of the toilet, and outlets should be easily accessible from the counter.

Mistake 2: Choosing the wrong materials

Because of the sink, toilet and shower, bathrooms deal with more moisture than any other room in the house. Homeowners also use many of the strongest cleaning products on bathroom surfaces. Both of these factors, if not taken into consideration, can lead to significant damage if you don’t select the right materials for the job.

Go with materials that can stand up to harsh cleaners and are not highly susceptible to mold, warping or distortion. Avoid porous materials that will retain moisture and allow hidden mold to grow.

Read The Full Article “What NOT to Do When Remodeling Bathrooms” Here

Great tips. The last thing you want is to finish your bathroom after spending thousands of dollars on it only to find that it’s hard for more than one person to use it at a time. Also choosing the wrong materials can really make things bad. Have you ever seen a bathroom that had carpet in it around the toilet and bath tub? We have and we can tell you from experience that it is GROSS! Also, your house may have hardwoods throughout, but real hardwoods won’t be able to hold up against the added moisture from a tub. Now days you can find actual tile that looks like hardwood if that is the route you want to go.

Summing It Up

If your bathroom isn’t to far gone, or if your house is newer, say 15 years old or so – you can just do a little maintenance and have your bathroom looking new again. If however you have an ugly bathroom you will have to do a little more to get it ready to go on the market. Just remember to do some prior planning and use the right materials.

If all of this is too much for you, remember, here at Mandich Property Group we buy houses in any condition. We don’t care how old or rough looking your bathroom is, we will buy it as is.