Selling a house? Don't fix this! Bad Investment!

so we're going to talk about what not to do when you're about to sell your house what type of Investments I would not recommend now I have a previous video on what you should do and I'll link it down in the description below but let's get into it so I was walking my dog around the neighborhood and my neighbor ran out and said hey Audra I'm thinking about putting a pool in my backyard do you think I'm it's a good investment and my answer is always going to be no some of these large Investments you get about 50 back and in our area we have more rules of regulations on polls which means the pools have to be dug even deeper and have extra concrete to support them you're just not going to get the return on your investment now if you plan on staying in your house for like 10 years or more and you want to raise the kids with a pool then great make the investment but understand when appraiser comes out to your house they're going to say hey The Neighbor Next Door sold for x amount without a pool I'll give you maybe 50 to 60 thousand dollars for a pool so and you're probably putting in about 200 right now for a pool in our area which is a lot of money so I'm not going to make that recommendation if you're going to sell your house in say the next year or two to to make that investment in a poll you're just not going to get your return on your investment okay another area I wouldn't spend a tremendous amount of money on if you're planning on selling your house pretty quickly is investing in the kitchen and what I mean by that like I have people that are totally gutting their entire kitchen out they're relining the where the island is and where some of the electrical outlets as far as where the oven's placement and they're completely gutting and redoing their kitchen and that could cost you anywhere from 150 to 250 demolishing the kitchen and starting over so my suggestion is let's update it a little bit right so maybe paint the the cabinets maybe change the knobs out maybe you know redo some of the the faucets that are you know on the countertop you know look underneath that sink make sure the garbage disposal is working things like that we're going to do a slight facelift but we're not going to gut the whole property in the whole area out to put a brand new kitchen you're just not going to get your return on your investment okay another area homeowners love to spend a ton of money is is those bathrooms so I'm not going to recommend that you gut the entire bathroom and throw a ton of money in there I would just say give it a slight facelift if you want to put somebody into your bathroom you know maybe work with what you have redo the floors maybe put some pretty glass sliding you know things on the shower maybe do some lighting accents things like that maybe pretty Outlets but we're not going to gut the whole bathroom start all over it's just you're going to probably get 50 of your return on your investment just make it look nice make it look tidy and of course paint always does wonders so I've been getting this question a lot some of my clients are asking me if they should add a master suites they have a master bedroom and they want to add an additional suite for the amount of cost and time it takes to make an addition to your property you get to go through permits you have to go through building all these other certifications to get it done and ultimately I just don't think you're going to get the return on your investment in the short term so it's going to be a lot of hassle there's going to be a lot of time and right now in this downturn of a market time is money so I'm not going to recommend you adding any master suites to Juju the master okay so I have some clients that are doing a lot of remodeling and they're replacing their doors and I'm going to tell you that most buyers out there don't give me on their non-negotiable list that the doors have to be really high-end now I really care about doors I have really nice doors on my property and it matters to me but if you're going to sell your house I can promise you that most the buyers aren't looking at your doors so if you have doors that are looking a little you know not so up to date I would recommend painting them and just changing out the hardware on the door it really does make a difference and it saves you a lot of money so for you homeowners out there that have an old or aging roof don't replace it so you're never going to get your return on your investment what I would recommend is hiring a roof specialist that comes out that can they can certify that it's in good working condition that there's no leaks you might have to pay some money for some replacement in some of the areas of your roof but the nice thing is when the home inspector comes in you show them this certification and if there is a home warranty that is provided it will cover it because it's in good working standing order during the home inspection so don't replace your roof you're not going to get the return on your investment patch it up make sure it's in good order so this question came up actually this week from a potential client of mine he said hey Audra you know my windows are getting older you know I want to replace them all what do you think and I'm like oh no no do your windows work well yeah but they're on the older side they get sticky a little bit my answer is going to be oh heck no and here's the reason I've never had a buyer ever say yeah I'm gonna go with house a because house B doesn't have the super duper windows it's just not an upgrade that most buyers really care that much about now I know some of you disagree with me but they care more about what the house looks like than your windows now I'm going to recommend that if you have a broken window or one that's leaking or one that's broken yes definitely repair that but don't spend a whole lot of money on these windows with a super duper manufacturer especially if you're going to resell just make sure they're in good working order all right and some of my older properties the furnaces just could put it doesn't work anymore okay so most people want Heating in their properties so I would highly recommend that you replace it and I'm not saying with the super duper model you're just not going to get your return on your investment you just need to make sure that the furnace is in working condition and has some life to it so finding a refurbished model finding a closeout model something like that even you know Second Use something like that they have some deals out there where I would go that route but spending a ton of money on a brand new super duper unit top of the line you're just not going to get your return on your investment so in that same vein your air conditioning units the air conditioning units out in the garage for some of you it's on top of the roof I would recommend having an HVAC specialist come out to the property to inspect to make sure that it's a good working order so if it's not and the specialist says Hey listen I can't give you a clean bill Health on this thing then buy a new one okay people are going to expect at least in my area an air conditioning unit yes it's getting hotter every year so a refurbished model a slightly used model a closeout model something like that once again I've never had a buyer say hey I'm going to choose house number a over house number B Because house number a has a super duper air conditioning system they just just make sure it's working it's in good order and it's going to last a few years okay so my final tip of the whole video is the things that give you the biggest bang biggest return on your investment the number one thing I can recommend is paint paint color of the Year this year for most paint manufacturers is the color white and it's kind of a creamy soft white so I would always choose the same color throughout the entire house and we want it very very neutral as neutral as possible no yellow red purples so the other area I'm going to recommend that you invest in is cleaning your windows just clean them just clean them all so and I had this one incident where the windows were so dirty in my client's house that the inspector thought the windows were compromised so we're going to clean our windows it's worth the investment you will definitely get your return on your investment when you're cleaning your windows if you have popcorn ceilings on your ceilings you're going to want to scrape those off it's extremely messy and will definitely give you a facelift by about 20 years and a great return on your investment and the last one is wallpaper now I know wallpaper is trending and right now I personally put wallpaper in my house but you know the one I'm talking about the one that's you know Granny's floral print that's been on the wall for 20 years and is yellowing we need to take that off now it's very time consuming and it's a pain in the neck to do but you will get a big return on your investment if you take that out now if you do have interest in selling your home and you're in my area you know who to contact and for those of you who are homeowners and have no interest in selling your home you know keeping things maintained is really important and I will link a video down below about the top things that come up on a home inspection report and this will help you maintain in your property throughout the years because when you go to sell your house if you ever do it's just not going to be this huge investment by the time you do it because you're going to be maintaining your house during you know all these years all right before I forget always forget but if you're getting any benefit out of this video please smash that like button and subscribe to my channel [Music]

Channel: Audra Lambert, Realtor

Views: 501,213

Keywords: Audra Lambert, what not to fix when selling a house, upgrades on a property, remodeling a house for resale, best return on your investment in housing upgrades, remodeling a house for sale, remodeling properties, be careful in upgrading your home, tips for upgrading your property, tips for remodeling your home, selling a house, don't fix this in real estate, ROI upgrades on investment properites, real estate investing, guidance on upgrading home, helpful tips when selling

Id: vnKGmKm574s

Length: 8min 20sec (500 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 21 2022