10 Ways to Boost Your Home's Resale Value

Catherine Conway I'm house hunting right now, and the biggest turn off is dark and dreary rooms. A lot of the houses I've looked at would be so much more appealing if the plants were kept trimmed away from the windows, the blinds were opened or taken down, and the lights had light bulbs in them. Lights don't need to be fancy, but they need to be there!

nanaanne The best thing I did to a 1903 Craftsman house was to take the paint off all the interior windows and baseboards in the living and dining rooms. It cost very little and made the interior look much more "Craftsman". I did it evenings, after work, while the family watched TV (and I listened to it) in the living room.

olldroo These ideas are great, especially extra storage, always a bonus, but remember every area is different, climate is different, lifestyles are different, people are different with different ideas and priorities. Research what relates to your area and focus on that.

Go to as many open houses in your local area as you can, note the features, size and condition of each house and compare to your home to assess the advantages your home has to offer or what simple improvements you can make. Look for flaws that would deter you - what flaws does your home have?? Chat to other potential buyers to gauge their reactions, what they are looking for, what is important to them and what is on their 'wish list'. Look at your local area, is there a particular group you would be most likely to be selling to - young families, empty nesters, investors and work from there.

Check out the little things in your home, chipped woodwork or paint, shoddy finishes, worn floor coverings, tile grouting - replacing that can make a bathroom look like new, even just using a grouting pen to freshen the existing grouting does wonders. Check for mould or any sign of water damage, nothing worse than dank smelly areas. Have any water problems fixed, anything obvious will only be deducted from your selling price anyway.

Check Houzz website room by room for little ways you can dress up your rooms cheaply or rearrange furniture to create a whole new and updated look. Just because the rooms look filled with expensive furniture and furnishings, doesn't mean you can't create a similar look inexpensively. When I first started my renovations, I was sent this website as a joke.........it is now my bible, I don't do a thing without checking here first.

Beware of overcapitalising! It can be cheaper to demolish and rebuild rather than extend and/or renovate.

There have been a lot of forums on this subject recently and from all of them one message has been loud and clear ................ clean, clean, clean.

astraea Loved all the suggestions, except the gray paint! What is it with decorators pushing gray paint at homeowners? It may be neutral, but it's certainly not a warm color to make people walk in & smile; how about warm beiges?!

olldroo Coming after a room with lime green walls ............ maybe the french doors cancel that out.

sclawson We recently sold our home of 20 years. In getting ready to put it on the market, we knew we needed to replace some exterior siding on the back of the house. The guy doing the work suggested repainting the entire house (one coat) to freshen it up. He had a good sense of color and also suggested toning ours down with a tan that had less yellow in it. He suggested a deep mahogany red for the front door. His thinking was the house would sell FASTER with that fresh-painted look. He was right! The third couple who came through made an offer within a few days. We had also had some over-grown shrubs removed, and then we replanted where necessary. On a day-trip in the country, we discovered a farmer selling mums for $2.50 each, so we stocked up and used the pop of color to unify the exterior.

Inside, we knew we had to correct a moisture problem in one bath that had left paint peeling and have some nail pops and such fixed in the drywall throughout the house. For $250, one guy did it all; we repainted that bathroom ourselves. We also had a crack in a fiberglass tub unit. When my husband called a dealer about replacing it, they said no need, that it could be resurfaced and look like new. $150 and two hours later, it was done!

I'd thought to have all our carpets cleaned, but since there weren't any obvious stains the realtor said to save our money. We had carpet buckling in a few places and called a locally owned flooring company for help. They restretched where needed and for $100 any indication of a crease or hump disappeared.

Beyond that, I cleaned all the woodwork and walls, retouched paint and decluttered. We were moving, so why move things we weren't using? We also planned to put our stuff in storage and live in a smaller place temporarily until we decided where we wanted to go next. So we really didn't want to pay to store extra stuff. It was a good strategy. The house had incredible closets and decluttering and arranging showed them off to advantage.

I think people need to be careful what they spent their money on when getting ready to sell a house. Structural things are more important than decor. Plan also that an inspector will find things you missed. In our case, they found the reason for the moisture in the bathroom: a soffett vent directly behind the problem area, clogged with insulation!

Don't discount the importance of a good realtor. Interview several and ask how they handle problems uncovered during inspection. We didn't ask this upfront, but did choose someone with a lot of experience who we trusted. He had a designated staff person who expedites closing and took care of finding quality people to handle the repairs and get it done quickly for a reasonable price. We didn't need to come up with any additional cash, as he agreed to settle it at closing. This realtor's commission was a smidge higher than others we interviewed, but he earned it, hands down. Some of the houses in our neighborhood that had been for sale before ours switched to our realtor after our house sold so quickly.

hmsdes In our area, buyers will definitely require a home inspection, so we went ahead and hired one before the house went on the market. We reviewed and fixed all problems then proceeded to use the report and our fixes as part of the sales strategy to show we didn't have any issues.

astraea hmsdes - Inspections are de riguer here too, but my agent told me not to bother paying for one when I was selling my house. She said that even if I fixed everything my inspection turned up, the buyers' inspector would find SOMETHING else .. even minor, just to prove that he was doing his job, and I'd wind up having to fix more in the end.

Portia+Rohm Realty In response to not doing inspections to let the inspector find something I would have to say I feel it's the wrong strategy. I'm a Realtor and developer and I always do the inspections and present a clean report. That way the price you get at the offer is going to stick. Otherwise you're asking for a second round of negotiations after you're in contract and have taken it off the market and are in a weak bargaining position.

As for the comment on beige it's basically a palette that is feeling very 1999-2009. The latest palette is greige. If that's too cool for you, look for warm greys with possible green undertones. Calming, warm, yet subdued helps the buyer relax and enjoy the house when they walk in the door.

stefjayc We recently sold our home, which we had for 10 years, & got way more over our asking price than we thought we'd get. This article was spot on for us. 8 years ago we remodeled our kitchen with cherrywood cabinets, granite counters & stainless steel appliances (7.) We also added an office area adjacent to the kitchen with lots of extra storage (10.) This was our biggest selling point. 6 years ago we redid the landscaping (2.) This gave our garden time to mature which gave us great curb appeal. That was probably our 2nd best selling point. A few years ago we added a storm door with a half screen to our front door (5.) A couple of months before selling we got rid of old wallpaper in the bathrooms (6.), gave them a new coat of paint (9.), & sodded over our parking strip (4.) A week before selling we painted our exterior & went from a country blue to a modern gray (9.) When showing our home we made sure all the clutter was gone & all the blinds were open & the place was airy & bright. For our kitchen remodel & our landscaping we hired contractors & got everything done professionally (1.) although we took care of the design. And yes, we have a power washer (3.) 9 out of 10 points isn't bad. I'd say this article is worth listening to :) Oh, & BTW, our house was on the market for less than a week & we got 6 offers to choose from!

astraea To Portia & Rohm - I guess we'll have to agree to disagree; maybe there's a big difference between California & New Jersey. Even you a house is perfect here & has had a clean inspection, no one would pay the asking price without a round or two of price negotiations. And you can't expect a resale to be "perfect" compared to a resale; there's always some little nit-picky thing a buyer or their inspector can find. Add green to gray .. please; those are the shades I hated in this house; it was NOT warm.

mcd53 We have been house hunting for awhile. Please do not start painting all the rooms some color of gray! Sure you can punch it up with bright pillows, etc, but that would just be something else I would have to redo. It might look good to the stager, but I'm a buyer and I would rather see a very pale yellow, eggshell anything but a gray.

myrna43 I personally like gray paint. It's a modern neutral that looks so clean! It looks good with white woodwork and pops of color like yellow, orange, red, or lime green. It also looks good with black and white kitchens and stainless steel appliances. For warmth, use light or medium brown wood floors and add some taupe in upholstered furniture.

k_sera My house wasn't exactly a fixer upper, more of a finish upper. Countertops, furnace, windows, bath tub and surround, sewer service line. And I'm getting ready to get rid of the swamp cooler and put in AC. The backyard needs to be planted. The front needs a little work. I'm going to plant a tree this fall so it will be bigger when the aging sycamore has to come down. And the house is getting painted. Right now, if I had to sell the house, there's no way I'd recover these costs. On the future list, redo the kitchen lighting and add a solar tube. I'd love to vault the living/dining room ceiling and add skylights or a clerestory dormer, but that's money I'd never see back.

Portia+Rohm Realty I guess not everyone likes grey. Perhaps I could have made a more precise comment and suggest that you should know your buyers. I develop and sell for a very fashion-conscious 30-something buyer who wants the latest trends like greige. I know that homes with traditional colors are quickly repainted by these couples. I see them in the paint store all the time. Do some research on similar homes in your area and price range. Then work with your Realtor to specifically imagine a scenario of buyer. Is it a single retired woman for your 2/1 with Victory garden on a small side street? Family with one kid in grade school and a young teenager? Get specific. If you build towards that profile it will highlight what you need to do to attract that buyer. You will be surprised how often that kind of analysis hits the mark and brings you just the right buyer! Trying to make a house everything to everyone usually makes it ok for us all but not special for anyone. You want one buyer to feel it's their special place because emotional equity translates into more equity for you at closing and happier buyers who make the transaction easier all around.

Seattle Staged To Sell I absolutely love this blog. A very important and useful topic.

As a home stager in Seattle, I often come across homes that have been remodeled by home owners AND builders, where the updates and floor plans were not thought through so well. Most of these homes, even though they have beautiful finishes, they sit on the market longer.

In addition to your suggestions, this is the advice I give homeowners: before you decide to make any updates to your home when you are planning to sell your home is first identify the targeted buyers for you home and keep them in mind when you are making your plans. You'll be happy you did.

I blog about this a lot and if anyone is interested, they can find them on my website. www.SeattleStagedToSell.com

olldroo So many comments and opinions on specific colours to me give people the wrong impression. I feel the focus should be more on creating a mood for the house according to its location and the season in which you will be selling.

I recently saw a blog in this website by a designer who had redecorated a beach house with all white walls and then used fresh, summery colours to liven the decor. Each room owned a colour but included pops of other colours to tie the whole house together. Nothing about it was my style at all but I absolutely loved it because it was perfect for the house, it was beach mood with class. I hate white walls, I've tried them and they look terrible in my home, but in this case anything else would have looked cheap.

If you are going to sell in autumn or winter or live in a colder climate, then the beige/brown neutrals are going to look warm, cosy and inviting, if you sell in spring or summer or live in a warm climate, then greys, whites, pale blues with pops of bright summery colours will make the house look fresh, cool, clean and just as inviting. You have to look at what is best for YOUR home and what makes your home inviting and liveable. It is surprising how people can be swayed from their 'trendy' ideas when they see something with mood and character, it all comes down to what people can live with.

Signature Designs by Bonnie Bagley The article has a great basis, it is always good to keep resale in mind while you do improvements to a property. One main thing to also keep in mind, make the updates slightly personal if you plan to stay in the home for a little while. You are in fact the owner, it is your home so it should reflect your personality too. If the updates are done in good taste you will generally appeal to the general public.

pattimay Portia+Rohm Realty - I have always been curious, perhaps you can answer. Today's color is greige. Though I like grey what do you do when next year is brown and the following year is red and after that white and so on. Do you continually pile up paint because of the "in" color?
Isn't it better to have a true neutral on the walls and have a grey rug, pillows, seat covers, etc.?
Though I like painted walls I like the clean square cut's in the walls better than the rounded edges from piles of paint.

mcd53 I would much prefer a true neutral that I am happy with for years and change the rugs and pillows other than paint every few years. I hate the cost , the trouble, the mess that goes with painting. If all of a sudden I want some gray...I'll get a pretty rug with gray in it. When I'm tired of it, one of my kids will love it.

mcd53 This has been a great blog. I learned a lot, even about my own family. But watch out stainless steel appliances. Whirlpool has just come out with something they are calling 'White Ice' appliances. And they are gorgeous.

astraea Well donnaciano, they're probably sure that by now everyone who can afford to, has gotten rid of their white appliances in favor of stainless steel .. so now they can now convince everyone they've GOT to get "white ice"! I HATE on the TV house hunting & design shows, when anyone acts like you can't possibly live in a house that doesn't have the right finishes!

Portia+Rohm Realty astraea - Sure! Let's disagree. There's more than one way to approach the process and I'm sure my choices are not universally admired by non-targeted buyers. pattimay - I'm not sure what you mean about square cuts vs piles of paint. If you mean layers of paint smooth out the inside corners, it is usually a finish detail that my painters deliberately caulk rounder. The taper's knife and sanding sponge rarely get it perfect so it looks better with caulk then paint in the corners.

My goal is to sell a house quickly for as much money as someone else is willing to pay. I think many of the respondents here are thinking about what kind of paint they would prefer over the long-term in their own home. Those two objectives may not line up and I certainly encourage branching out from grey if your personal palette needs it.

My own kitchen is high gloss white and three shades of grey in the background. It's trendy as hell and I expect to repaint in a few years when I get bored with it. That will cost me around $2k and one weekend. Not a big deal to freshen things up and get rid of the inevitable smudges and bumps from our kids. If your paint job costs $10k I can see why you only want to do it once. Once you have a good painter do the prep work and throw on the primer, changing color coats is much easier and just involves careful masking.

BTW, we just remodeled our own kitchen and I used Ikea cabinets with their 25 year warranty and interchangeable doors because I can always swap them out right before I want to resell without having to tear out the whole kitchen. The cabinet guys want to sell you wood frames because they are more expensive and pop you into the "full-custom" category. The particleboard is more dimensionally stable around the fluctuating moisture levels in a kitchen and less prone to warp over time. We saved $15k on cabinets and put it into appliances we really love! (Miele, Liebherr)

We have a YouTube Channel Portia+Rohm Realty where I try to add more construction videos of upcoming homes. I've found that the buyers really appreciate seeing what happened behind the walls and the thought process. In the case of 1677 11th St. (one of the videos) the buyer was relocating from out of town and was able to make the offer after his wife saw the during construction and finish tour videos. If you don't feel comfortable making your own, ask your Realtor to do a video tour for you. I have more page views from my videos than from the MLS!

astraea Portia+Rohm – You must be confusing me with another poster; I didn’t say anything about “square cuts vs piles of paint (I’m not even sure what that means myself!). Painting my house in 2009 cost $6K, before I moved in & when there was no furniture in it, and the carpet was being replaced. With the furniture there, I’m sure a painter would charge more now & it would take longer, if they had to move the furniture out of the way.

On average, many resales here are on the market for a year or longer now, and it can’t be fun to be in a house that no longer feels like your home; with colors you don’t like, and a lot of your personal stuff stored away.

A lot comes down to personality. I spend a lot of time selecting exactly what I like .. and 10 or 20 years later I still like it, like furniture. Other people make selections on a whim, and 18 months later they’re ready for a change again. The latter can be a lot more expensive.

pattimay astrea - no worries. It was me that made the comment about square cuts! (Portia+Rohm did put my name in before he made the comment)

Since I've confused everyone I'll explain what I meant... I like new contemporary sharp cut corners. After years of piling on paint, those "square cuts" (edges and corners) no longer look sharp they become rounded. Not a big deal to some but to those of us - me - that look is important therefore I don't paint with the fads.

Perhaps I should have remained quiet since my comment seemed to be quite bothersome. Sorry. :`(

Portia+Rohm Realty I should quit while I'm ahead but I just wanted to point out that once again I was in the Telegraph Ave. Oakland paint store this morning picking up some deck enamel and lo and behold ran into two complete strangers (women) ordering the EXACT colors I use in my homes. I respect everyone here who hates grey but my local market research says I'm spot on for MY buyers. Just a little anecdote to make the point that all markets are local and make sure to calibrate comments you see on a national blog like this one to your own specific market if you're looking for maximum resale. If you're painting for maximum enjoyment then who cares what anyone else thinks?!

astraea You ended your last post with the most important statement, "If you're painting for maximum enjoyment then who cares what anyone else thinks?!" Maybe someone's already posted it, but is there any rule of thumb percentage of sale price, that's "financially reasonable" for a homeowner to spend, specifically getting a house ready for sale? (and that wouldn't include repairs that MUST be made)

trasgorshek I sure hope we get one of your buyers, Portia-Rohm Realty, when we go to sell because I've personally painted our entire main floor in shades of grey and love it! I know when we go to sell I won't want to repaint with 25 ft walls again, almost killed myself the first time. If we lived by you, that woman you keep seeing at the paint store would be me. The guys at the Benjamin Moore store have come to know me by name. LOL

I picked the colors I did because I love them, not because its "in". I just got lucky on that one. I hope it's still current when we go to sell, whenever that might be.

mcd53 Astraea, you misunderstand. I don't like the idea of replacing appliances. Every home we walk in the owners have been told to put in stainless steel and my 15 year old fridge that looks great and still works fine is going with me. This year it's stainless steel...next year it's something else. I don't want white ice, but I don't want all the stainless steel either.

astraea I was just being sarcastic about how designers & manufacturers create trends, that encourage people to buy something new, even when it's unnecessary.

mcd53 I was trying to also. I've seen so much stainless steel and the same granite countertops, all the homes are beginning to look alike. We raised five kids in our first home, we were down to three in this home. Everybody's grown and gone and I want this to be the last home. With five kids coming to visit we will always need plenty of room, but it seems we aren't the 'typical buyer' this time around. And I am not enjoying it at all this time.

olldroo Astraea and donnaciano - I love your comments, you are so on my planet. I have no idea what white ice is, obviously something new that will hit here sometime in the next year and I have always hated aluminium from day one - way too cold and clinical for me. You have really hit the nail on the head Astraea when you say about designers and manufacturers creating trends (and pushing them) but those trends would go nowhere if people don't buy. Unfortunately there are too many sheep in this world.

There is so much snobbery about products on the TV home shows, people are almost brainwashed into believing they HAVE to have them when all the time the products being pushed are usually those of sponsors - how believable is anything on these shows. Last weekend I looked a 3 beautiful homes on the market, all in the $1.5m price range and ALL homes had exactly the same carpet in a colour I could only describe as pale mud. For that price, I would want a bit of individuality.

When you have been on this earth as long as I have you do become content in and with yourself, your likes and dislikes, and what you are comfortable with, so no amount of hype or snobbery sells a product to me. In fact I just loathe going into shops and having some gung-ho sales person speak to me like I have been locked away for the last 20 years and have no idea of anything, just because I am old. It is lovely to read too, donnaciano that you are still planning to accommodate your 5 children. I am so sick of being constantly told I should downsize but I want the space also for my daughters and my grandchildren to freely visit and stay and I like to think the extra housework helps keep me fit.

mcd53 Grooviegrannie, thank you so much. I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with me. And the staging your home article almost pushed me over the edge. When you walk in the door you can tell if the home has been taken care of or they hurried up to fix the doorknobs, faucets and slapped some new paint on it. One home was redone to the max, but the cat smell that hit us when we walked in the door...well. And I have nothing against cats, but all that money in the kitchen couldn't fix that. I'm smart enough to know if my furniture will fit and if I like 'the bones' of the house that can be my things on the wall.

Houzz is the best app, because as old as I am I do update and love new ideas. And my kids check it out when they come over and just fawn over it. "This is great mom, help me with this idea".
But every year it is something else that is the new in thing and I might love to look at it, but I really hate having to talk one of the kids out of spending their money on a something they really don't need.
And I truly believe the glass shower had to have first been designed for a movie set. I prefer my shower private. Five kids are now five adults still coming home, just not as often.
We found both of our homes fairly quickly. The first, the family was still in it with a six month old, rocker in front of the television. Had a five and a three year old. The second was complety empty. Clean as a bell, but I could tell where their televisons had been and knew mine were going to sit somewhere else. I assumed it would be the same this time. It's a good thing we aren't in a hurry because it seems to be a whole new ball game now.

I'm just really glad I taught my kids to clean behind themselves and we fixed things when they needed to be fixed. And I might simmer some vanilla and cinnamon on the stove. But I like to do that anyway. It does make the house smell so good. And my older good looking fridge is going with us. My baby's baby loves to get his own ice out of it. Just like she did.
We aren't in a mansion, but we are downsizing a tad. But only because when I'm in the bedroom reading and my husbands on his computer it's a long walk to ask him something. The kids aren't cool with the move yet, but they weren't the first time either. Now with grandkids there's time to make new memories. Enough familiar stuff goes they barely noticed the first move.
I don't ever want my kids or grandkids not to stay because they think they are in the way. And housework does keep you fit.

astraea Thanks groovygranny; it’s the whole housing industry that buys into these trends, helping each other with more business. If a buyer isn’t that into the trends, their realtor will push them in that direction .. and you can be sure that most realtors have remodeling contractors they like & steer business their way! If you ask ½ of these professionals & 3/4 of the buyers, I’d bet they really don’t have good justifications for why they think or tell others that stainless steel & granite are better; just sheep repeating the trend talk.

I love your “pale mud” description! I think I mentioned that my basement was so dark when I bought this house; with olive walls & an olive-brown carpeting, I referred to it as “the bat cave”! I had my own logical preferences, even when I bought my first house at 32, I think it's more a function of "independent thinking" than "age"! I remember asking what mortgage I’d qualify for, and the monthly payment was way higher than I felt comfortable with, regardless of the bank’s calculation. That’s another thing I don’t understand, people shifting responsibility to their lender, because they didn’t think for themselves regarding how much they could afford to pay monthly!

I like all the ideas on Houzz, but I wish they’d put things in perspective .. list renovation costs, mention how much people spent building their custom homes, identify which homeowners just happen to be designers, architects, contractors & cut costs by doing a lot of the work themselves themselves .. and maybe people will see some of those beautiful but extreme designs as impractically expensive for the average person!

olldroo Oh donnaciano, in so many aspects of every day living I often ask my friends if we are the weird ones and everyone else is normal. I had two cats for many years - well my daughters did, I inherited them when they left home, but never did my house smell and I made sure of that with regular cleaning, it isn't that hard. When my youngest daughter bought her first home we spent a week scouring the house before they could move in, the previous owners had a dog and the bottom 18" of every wall inside and out was black from where it rubbed against them and the smell was unbelieveable. As well they had three boys and the main toilet we cleaned and recleaned nearly every day, they obviously had absolutely no sense of direction.

I am absolutely loving this website even though I can't buy a lot of things here, I can see outside the square to compromise for the same effect. Unfortunately, I do waste far too much time on it. I just wish the photos on Houzz could be put onto an email individually as I have a daughter in LA with 2 young children so is time poor but when she needs anything I search Houzz for it but then have to put it in my ideas book to email her.

Good luck with your house hunting, looking forward to following your progress.

olldroo Hi Astraea - fortunately here our realtors (or estate agents as we call them) haven't really gotten into the staging bit when it is done it is more a snobbery thing on the part of vendors being able to say they had a stylist. Of course, the house market here is so different also, I have said before, in the right area a dog kennel will sell.

Strangely, granite hasn't taken off that well, the really in thing is Ceasarstone and I am sick of it - I like to be different. I note in a previous comment you said you have Corian and like it. I have it on my ensuite vanity and love it so much I can't wait to put it in my kitchen when I get up to renovating that. It has to be the easiest product to maintain, I can't understand why it never really took off. My ensuite renovation starts next week and despite my vanity being 32 years old I am keeping it simply because anything else on the market at the moment is impractical rubbish in comparison and I can't bear to part with the Corian. It has a timber veneer finish and I am looking at painting that to update it,

Couldn't agree more with you on the perspective issue, especially useful when people can think of building a house with all the bells and whistles and only one bedroom. Although a lot of things are a bit meaningless here, it is still interesting to know just what people do pay to gauge comparisons. I have also raised several times concern at specific trendy colour schemes with no mention to aspect and lighting. When people are looking for help they can make big mistakes if they don't consider this and people needing help often don't understand that. I mentioned the 3 homes I looked at last weekend all beautifully renovated, stylish and ultra modern, but I also looked at a 4th house built around the same time (most homes here were built 40-50 years ago) but other than a new kitchen - not a recent one at that - the rest of the house was original. The whole downstairs was dank and smelly, built ins were falling apart, upstairs the carpets were filthy and very worn, the floor boards creaked and seemed to move when walked on, built ins smelt of age, bathrooms done in 60s avocado green and tobacco brown and landscaping a mess. The house was empty so absolutely no staging had been done. Asking price? ............high 900ks and it has sold already. Be interesting now to see if it is renovated or detonated. Renovating could cost at least $200 to $300k, a new spec house could cost from $300k up. When I read about homes selling for 200k and 400k and the renovations planned it doesn't give a lot of leeway before you would be overcapitalising, especially in the US market.

astraea groovygranny - Quartz (engineered stone) is supposed to be even more durable than granite, so I thought that I might use that for the main bathroom vanity top instead .. but the range of colors leaves a lot to be desired! Only Dupont Zodiaq has a little more color. I’m in love with the light blue & green granites, with a lot of pattern to them, but they’re hideously expensive; when I looked for the MBR vanity, the color I wanted was $400/sq ft! A lot of people just get similar black granite & there's nothing individualistic about that. I don’t know why my kitchen was done with 2 different countertop materials, but it gives me the opportunity to compare working on them. I also have a Corian sink, but I’m not happy with that, because it never looks as clean as ceramic.

I remember a friend years ago, painting her foyer a rich forest green high-gloss paint, which she’d seen in a magazine, and then wondered why it looked so dark in her house .. maybe because the magazine photos were taken with flood lights on in the room!

Are you near the water; because that makes home prices skyrocket. There are small bugalows/cottages here, that are right on the beach walk, and they go for > $1 million too. No clue what they’re like inside, but some are rented for the season, so they may not be in such great shape.

olldroo There are so many different surfaces these days going by so many different names, I find it hard to keep up. I've had 32 years out of my Corian and it still looks like new so in a sense why pay for some of these pricier options. When I got my vanity there were only two colour options but I think there is a wide range now. Did you know that if you get a stain or mark on it that won't clean off, you simply sandpaper it off? I haven't had to do that yet. I don't think I could like the Corian sink, that is about the only thing I like in stainless steel, just about all homes here have it. Yikes, $400 sq ft, I couldn't justify that. We have a lot of vanities with marble effect synthetic tops and basins moulded in one, they look lovely until you drop a lid or a tube of lipstick and they scratch and there is nothing you can do about it. Of course the sales people hate you knowing that. Love pale blues in bathroom and seaspray greens. Don't mind a pattern if it is shades of one colour, saw a house once, two bathrooms and both vanities had the most colourful extremely patterned marble tops - looked like something the cat had thrown up on, I certainly couldn't face it first thing in the morning. Actually the main bathroom was hilarious, it was really tiny, but as well as the marble the vanity was really big and very ornate. You almost had to climb into the bath to get past it to get to the toilet, there was so little room.

Love the forest green paint - too funny - but that is the sort of thing I mean, people just don't realise these things.

We are almost surrounded by water but because of the steepness of the land and it is surrounded by national park we have no water views, we just enjoy the cooling breezes in summer. It isn't just the water though, the whole area is priced similarly, it is convenient to the CBD and beaches and is a very friendly and safe area with excellent schools and 3 international schools which many people here on secondment prefer to send their children to.

astraea These are my favorite granite colors, but they look better on a large surface .. like an island, than on a vanity with the sink in the middle. Upper left is "Van Gogh," one to right is "Verdi Bamboo", and bottom is "Pacific Gold".

olldroo Yes you definitely need a large area to appreciate it and it is hard to picture from a small sample. The marbles I have seen in bathrooms are only on fairly small vanities around 4' and as you say the bowl does break it up and, I feel, often cheapens it, or in the case of ones with many, many colours just doesn't give it a chance to show the true pattern and ends up a mess. Love Verdi Bamboo, that is the seaspray colour I meant and with the browns it really represents the ocean and sand to me, I would find that very restful. The Pacific Gold looks very interesting, again it has a beach look, which I really love, and the blue seems to have a lot of depth and interest but they are the sort of patterns you have to see in full size. Thank you for posting.

calkelley sold our house last year in the Bay Area (in not one of the greatest school districts) and really hit all the right points. 3 bedrooms (though the third was small!), 2 small baths.
The kitchen was already gorgeous and huge so cleaned the solid cherry cabinets with Pledge (really? A trick my wood floor guy suggested) until they gleamed! Fixed up the landscaping a little to add to the great back and front yards - the fruit trees and hedges were growing in for years.
The main rooms were painted a soft gold/yellow - grey would not have worked with the wood, white french doors or solid cherry storage cabinets throughout the whole house. Little things like having someone in to clean the grout of the bathroom made a huge difference in the overall feel of clean. All new facets, lights, hinges brought it more contemporary.
The biggest expense - we had the bedroom carpet and family room pergo replaced with wood floors and refinished the rest. Everything gleamed.
Agent did a brokers' tour Tuesday, open houses Sat and Sun, and took multiple offers on Tues morning.

We did the right things in our neighborhood to have it stand out - it had some great points despite being much smaller than the generic built houses around; but that's what drew us in when we bought it. We just accented the points we loved about the house and 2 retired couples, a young couple with a new baby, a single mom with a tween daughter - they all loved it enough to go way above asking.
A big generic house around the block - sat for months. Even with modern colors. It was just like all the others so people bought the others at a better price.

db93003 Don't forget to replace window screens!! Torn, worn saggy screens and screen doors are real turn-offs from both inside and out>

Brandenberry I just recently bought a resale house and what attracted me to it were the following factors... A clean and well-maintained flooring without visible watermarks or bloating (floor is wooden), repainted walls in the living and dining rooms, clean bathroom tilings without molds or grouts and kitchen cabinet that is still in good condition. And the entire concept of the house was not a sore to the eyes as well with neat arrangement of furniture and bright and lively wall colors.

Patti Carlson Is it "OK" to mix greys and tans, like khaki painted walls with grey carpet? We have a new autumn horizon legdestone fireplace in the room that has all warm colors including tans, rust, greys....

olldroo Patti Carlson: Maybe take some photos of your room and ask the question on Design Dilemma. You will find a lot of Houzzers willing to assist you that way.

Eubank Staging You left out the obvious in your first tip. Hire a Pro. HIRE A STAGER. They know what to do to get your house sold : )

Ann Navarro You also need to ask for real estate agent's recommendation. This way, you can determine the other options in selling your home. You can ask Potts Point Real Estate Agents for other details to sell your home quickly.

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