We're thinking of selling also- advice?

jannypie

We're thinking of selling and moving in closer to town, into the Grandview/Upper Arlington area. A lot of you have been to our place so I think you'd have a good idea of what our position is.

Anyone live or been around The Glen development? (In between Hilliard Dublin and UA) I saw a ton of houses open there on realtor.com. Wondering what the neighborhood is like.

Also we're wanting to do some improvements to the house to help it sell. Currently our developers are still building. We live in the largest model they offer and have an end unit, so that's good. We would be looking to just break even at least.
-Current new builds of our model start at $134 with no upgrades. Current upgrades they're offering include Pergo flooring  & pedestal sinks in the downstairs bathroom.
-We're thinking of:
---putting Pergo in the whole first floor
---updating all the lighting, mirrors and fixtures in all the bathrooms
---tiling the master bath floor
---installing a linen closet in the upstairs hall

and we did install the custom built island as well in the kitchen, and upgraded the door handles, lighting in the whole place and ceiling fans in both bedrooms.

so our condo we'd sell for about the same price as a basic new, with Pergo already in, upgraded fixtures, lighting etc, and would offer a kitchen island and linen closet which no others will have.

WDYT about all that? Worth it to do, you think? Can you suggest any other details that might help it sell? TIA ladies!!

jannypie

Oh, also whats a typcial %age that realtors get from the closing cost? We will want to add that in too. Thanks!

mrsjennosu

When ours was on the market, our realtor's fee was 6% of the sale price.

I think your improvements sound great to me. But I'm not sure about the ROI in this market. I'm sure one of the realtors will be able to answer.

Good Luck!

ibbunee77

since you are competing with new builds in your development, i think it's good to do as many updates/upgrades as possible to differentiate yourself, especially in a condo community.

we had our old condo listed for 6 months with lots of showings but no offer. so we took it off the market, painted, added pergo floors in the kitchen, ceramic tile to all the bathrooms and finished a half bath that was previously just plumbed in. put it back on the market and had an offer in 6 days even though there were 5 other units for sale that were the exact same floorplan as ours. we did all of the work ourselves and it cost us less than $2500. in the end we lost a couple thousand after realtor fees but it was worth it to us to get it sold and into our new house.

i think all the updates you listed are worthwhile except maybe the lighting, mirrors and fixtures in the bathrooms since those are so easily replaceable by the buyers anyways. they'll most likely want to choose their own style.

hungryturtle

The realtors will probably be able to help you more, but I thought I would share my experience. We just sold our house. It was Southwest schools nestled between two Hilliard neighborhoods. In the past three years we had replaced the roof, put new hardwood in the kitchen, replaced the dishwasher, had it professionally painted inside and out and added some much-needed landscaping. In all we put about $10k into home improvements. Having walked through most of the open houses in our neighborhood, it was one of the most updated, upgraded and well kept for sale at this time. Our friends and realtors told us how beautiful it was and how quickly it would sell. And the results? It took five months to sell and we sold for $5k less than we paid in 2004. I don't mean to be discouraging, and maybe the condo market it better. We took a loss on the house in exchange for getting into our "forever home" for much less than we ever thought we would. We love our new house and don't regret it, but it still hurt to take the loss. All the things you're saying sound great, but I know its harder to sell in neighborhoods that are still building. If you really want to be in UA/Grandview badly enough that you are willing to take a loss on your condo, go for it. Its a great time to get into those places because there are deals to be found. However, if you are looking to stay in your next place for less than five years I wouldn't do it b/c you can't count on the market going up. Also, as much as you want to "break even" it is quite possible that you may end up doing all that to sell the house and finding that you don't break even and in fact lose a lot of money. Again, I'm not a realtor and I was selling a house rather than a condo. But my very experienced realtor told me that we would "price to sell" and it should take 30-45 days . . . and instead we had to drop the asking price $30k before we even got a low ball offer. Best of luck with a tough decision. We were tempted by the deals to be found and jumped on it, but we also had to give someone else a deal in exchange because that's the market right now. If I were you I think I would talk to a couple different realtors and see how much the comps are selling for and how long they've been on market before taking the risk.

ibbunee77

to answer your other question. we used deb & jerry harr with homes that click and they charged us only $500 to sell our place as long as we used them to buy, in which they got 3% from that seller. i think they've changed their fee structure since then and it's now 1%. but i highly recommend them. they were great to work with - not at all bargain/low-service realtors that you might expect at that fee structure.

ibbunee77

oh and of course we had to pay 3% to the buyer's realtor. so it total it cost us 3% + $500.

AmberOH

E-mail me Jan! 

jannypie

thanks for the feedback! we're focusing on mostly cosmetic things since the condo itself is only 3 years old, and therefore no big renos are needed. the cosmetics (like the mirrors and lighting) would be 100% to make the place more attractive to buyers. as it is, we have pretty cheap/basic mirrors and lighting and we really will need our place to stand out. we'll probably be able to do all of it for less than 2K, which would be an investment we're willing to make. even if the house doesnt sell, we'll be able to enjoy the benefits. we're not so desperate to move that we'd take a loss, but we're just kind of thinking if we do these things then maybe we'll be able to trade it in for a place in town.

(and i have tried to talk DH out of the linen closet idea, but he is hell bent on it. and when he's hell bent, i could talk until i'm blue in the face and all it will do is make us argue, so i've accepted having a linen closet installed!) :-P

shannanicole

I think that you would def. help your chances of selling with the upgrades, but you wouldn't get all your money back out w/ the upgrades.  Also make sure you consider realtor fees and closing costs when thinking about your costs to sell the place.  It can be hard to sell in an area that is still building so anything you can do to make yours a cut above the rest is great. 

If you wanna talk realtor fees, email me.