Talk to another couple of agents. Look at everything that's already listed in your area, on realtor.com or zillow. If you have an active market, you won't need to do much of anything except major cleaning and decluttering. You're moving anyway, right? Start packing. If you want, you can get an inspection and start on the repair jobs that you know will have to be done. But upgrades? Talk to more agents.

If the market remains as it currently is do what sushipup suggests. Deep cleaning, fixing items that need repair, slap on a new coat of paint may be all that is needed unless the trees are brushing the house. Most remodeling may increase the price on a 120 year old house but you will not recover the cost of the remodeling unless the house is in terrible shape. With the current trend of buyers wanting to place "their mark" on their purchase bath and kitchen remodeling often ends up in the dumpster.

Cut down trees - um, no. Not unless they are visibly diseased and falling down. most people love trees, and they actualy add value to your house. It is said that a large mature tree can reduce inside temps as much as ten degrees. They can be trimmed away from a house without cutting them down. I have a ginormous spruce next to my house and all it requires is a trim on that side about once every 5 or 10 yrs. If someone hates or freaks out about a tree, they can cut it down. Those of us who love old fashioned shade trees - I guess we can plant new ones, but some of us don't have seventy years to wait for it to grow back LOL. I consider a barren sparsely treed yard a flaw - not a deal breaker necessarily but it is an obstacle.

Price the house accordingly and let the new owners do any renovations wanted. I'm with the above clean, declutter, repair and paint if needed. Sure you will get a higher price if you renovate, but the only person it benefits is the agent. Their commission is based on the selling price of the house. You will lose due to poor returns on renovations.

Another thing, I have several items I have installed in the house which I don't plan to take with me. Which should I remove?

4 workbenches in the basement, with storage drawers below.

Directtv antenna (maybe AT&T will remove it when I end my service)

Flat screen TV, wall mounted in the attic (2002 vintage)

TV antenna with mast mounted amplifier.

Of course, I'm leaving all appliances.

Leave all and have the realtor note such in listing.

Attach a picture and people here will provide input on DIY landscaping and low cost modifications to improve curb appeal. Trimming trees and overgrown bushes and a few months of serious lawn care/service can make a big difference.

True, many buyers might be scared off if they see too much deferred maintenance.

I don't know your market but it will depend on if it's a buyer/seller market and to what extent. In most cases you will make up your renovation expenses but not always, especially when people do very specific renovations that not every buyer would like. Fresh paint, any repairs that need to be made and a good cleaning would go a long way. If you don't have the time or money to put up to do major renovations then I wouldn't. You can compare homes in your area that have recently sold, see the top end (the ones that updated everything) and the mid grade ones that have been updated semi recently but don't have any major issues and see if it's worth putting up the money to do it.

Clean, declutter, clean again, empty closets, empty attic, empty basement, paint where needed, repair whatever doesn't work. Get a home inspection and repair the little things and whatever major that doesn't work. Don't tear off any of the antennas. Do tear out old landscaping and prune back bushes with extra attention given to the front and rear entry. Plant some flowers in pots by the entries. Wash the exterior of the house and out buildings. If the inspection reveals that you need a new roof or some other mechanical item, fix it. You may want to remove old carpet if the floors are good underneath. Kitchens and baths, let the new buyer make that determination. Just make certain everything works.

My experience with DirecTV is that they'll want the inside unit and maybe the LNB from the dish, but not the actual dish or stand. You might want to find out if that's still true. I'd take the dish and mount off, as it can often look unsightly, especially if wires are exposed.

As far as your other work, materials have doubled on some items in the last year, if you can get them, and finding someone who will do the work in a timely manner can be difficult. I'm with others; make the house as attractive as possible with a little DIY, then let it go.

That bedroom-bath kind of looks like a hotel set up. I dont know if I'd futz with it - who knows, maybe the next people would want a shower and would have to redo it all anyway. I dont know if theres any one single detail except maybe, as above poster suggested, there's something problematic about the location?

It's a personal preference. We recently met with a local realtor to talk about our options & originally planned to sell 'as is'. We heard her out and instead decided to put some money into the house now. We have no immediate plans to sell, but when we do, we want to have confidence that when we put our home on the market it will sell quickly / for the most $$ possible. I think the changes she suggested will make our home look better overall AND attract more buyers, plus we can enjoy our home more as long as we live here.

Paula, I know your not selling, but did you ever fiqure out the market value for your home before the renovations and immediately after? Did you recoup all of your money plus a nice profit for your inconvenience during the Reno.

Check with your realtor about expected upgrades in your area. In my area, many older houses still have the original gate valves around the water meter. When I sold my house, I had the valves replaced with new quarter turn valves as part of my preparation.
I know a semiretired licensed plumber with very reasonable rates and I can schedule the work when it is convenient for us. If such an item is part of an inspection report, typical contracts require having a licensed plumber pull a permit as part of the work. Many of the local plumbers don't want to go through the paperwork hassles to pull permits for small jobs so the ones who will charge a nice premium for their services. A $200 job becomes a $600 job when permits are required.

Small electrical issues become expensive when found at inspection. I would pay an electrician a small fee to walk through the house and fix small issues, test outlets, inspect the panel, point out code violations and discuss the general condition. Then if the buyer's inspection finds any issues, you will be prepared. If you don't know an electrician, ask your realtor for a recommendation.

One problem I have is that our town now requires all violations of current code be brought up to date; i.e. no grandfathering. For example, some of the wiring was done with 2-wire BX (no separate ground wire). Grounding accomplished with the metal sheath. This is not allowed now.

Really? That's their jurisdiction? This is link to list of NY State municipalities that are authorized "to adopt higher or more restrictive standards". https://www.dos.ny.gov/DCEA/mrls.html If it's not on the list BS. Can they make you tear out galvanized water pipe, tear stairs out for proper rise/run?

My town is Brookhaven. I don't quite understand the format you posted, but fire code could mean a lot!

functionthenlook - Yes, & that's a good point. Real estate is crazy & we already expect a nice profit ($350k+). I want to be confident it sells fast b/c we won't list till we find a new home (which could take a while). At that point, we can't afford to sit on the market for months, we don't want people pointing out tons of needed improvements so they low-ball, expect us to start fixing things OR just walk away. In our neighborhood / price-point, we know what buyers expect. Our kitchen is dated, so we're willing to paint cabs, do new counters, backsplash & floors. We'll refresh the master bath, do a few other projects & paint. We'll love it for a while and I'm confident with our updates, it will appeal to more buyers - which will hopefully get us a higher offer & quicker sale. That's the plan anyway, fingers crossed!

First a smart-ass comment - If the town requires a house for sale to conform to "all" current codes, its unlikely there are many homes that can be put up for sale, so you may have a real gem if you fix up your house and put it on the market.

You really need to go down to the city and find out what their restrictive codes specifically cover and how its typically resolved. For example, if they require adequate grounding for all 2-wire receptacles with BX, that might be accomplished by switching them all to GFCI receptacles. Its certainly easier than pulling all new wiring.

Fire Code usually means a specific set of requirements for combustible materials, or fire separation/distance, etc. Electrical equipment can cause fires, but the electrical requirements should be in the electrical code.

Bruce

I wonder Paula if you have realized that as soon as you finished your upgrades they were no longer current. When you go to sell it will make little difference in the selling price because they will not be what is in style at the moment. Do not expect to recover what the renovation cost. Some areas of the country if you are going from a 1950s to 2020 standards you will increase the selling price. You and others need to look at the projected increase in value of various types of renovations.

As a professional stager, I would tell you that there are wide degrees to what can/should be done. It depends on your price point, market conditions and target demographic.
Yes things are selling fast BUT minor changes that can make a significant impact will make your house sell faster and for more money.
To make a general statement that simply decluttering and cleaning is all you need to do is leaving money on the table.

Paula, we also bought our present home before we put our home up for sale. Took us 9 months to find a house we liked. We always kept our home in good repair. We didn't do any renovations. Just cleaned, neutral paint, etc and it sold the 1st day. Location and price.

Good luck on your home search.

How many "problems" should be revealed? One particular problem is that there is a spot through which plumbing runs, which can freeze. In the past, I put heating tape on those pipes and when it's really cold (below 10F), I leave a tap dripping. Unfortunately, this past winter I had students living there and they did not do that and a faulty fitting gave way. Of course that will be fixed, but should either the RE agent or potential buyers be made aware of this? Or, since I am preparing an "operators manual" for the house, I could just include that.

On a related note, not a problem, 30 years ago I ran 12 Ga speaker wires from the attic "Home Theater" room to the basement, to provide myself with music in my workshop. These wires were run inside the walls and are conventional THHN wires, so could be easily mistaken for power wires. It would be quite difficult to pull them out, so I was thinking of simply labeling them at both ends.

I've bought 3 houses & nobody EVER pointed out the problems to us before buying. And our current house (build in 1885) has a lot of issues. It's the buyers responsibility to get an inspection. You can't lie - if they/their inspector ask questions you have to be honest.

My current realtor wants to know all the problems with our house - not so she can tell buyers, but so we can either address problems now, OR find out costs to fix things - so at least she can tell a buyer "yes, owners made me aware of that, we've looked into it and it's not an expensive fix, expect that to cost $500".

Get a blank copy of the seller's condition report that's standard in your area. That's all you are obligated to disclose.