Cat-tirement
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2013
- Messages
- 285
We are 1 to 5 years away from ER (hopefully closer to the lower end). We already own our future retirement home. I am starting to think ahead to what we should do in the line of improvements and repairs to prepare our current house for sale. What would be best for us to work on over the next couple of years to facilitate the sale, and what will have minimal impact to making a sale? Obviously, we would prefer to keep the costs down, as we will not be here long term to enjoy the investment.
We bought our current house new in 1993. A couple of kitchen appliances have been replaced, and we had a new roof put on last year, and central A/C the year before. It still has the original carpet and vinyl flooring. The vinyl is still in good shape, though a bit dated now. There is not a lot of wear on most of the carpet, but areas are faded and there are pet stains in a number of places. (DW has suggested replacing some of the carpet with hardwood.) There are several drywall cracks, mostly at wall/ceiling junctions. A few double pane windows have lost their seal, and sometimes get internal condensation. There is an outside set of stairs leading from the driveway to the back yard, built from landscape timbers that are starting to rot away.
I've seen some folks suggest providing an "allowance" to potential buyers to help them do some improvements and replacements to suit themselves. We might also consider pricing it lower to help it move without spending much on improvements. If it would be helpful, we could have the house vacant before putting it up for sale.
So, opinions anyone? Particularly those who have been through house sales in the last couple of years.
We bought our current house new in 1993. A couple of kitchen appliances have been replaced, and we had a new roof put on last year, and central A/C the year before. It still has the original carpet and vinyl flooring. The vinyl is still in good shape, though a bit dated now. There is not a lot of wear on most of the carpet, but areas are faded and there are pet stains in a number of places. (DW has suggested replacing some of the carpet with hardwood.) There are several drywall cracks, mostly at wall/ceiling junctions. A few double pane windows have lost their seal, and sometimes get internal condensation. There is an outside set of stairs leading from the driveway to the back yard, built from landscape timbers that are starting to rot away.
I've seen some folks suggest providing an "allowance" to potential buyers to help them do some improvements and replacements to suit themselves. We might also consider pricing it lower to help it move without spending much on improvements. If it would be helpful, we could have the house vacant before putting it up for sale.
So, opinions anyone? Particularly those who have been through house sales in the last couple of years.