the home!
TIPS FOR KITCHEN AND B CHEN AND BATH
Kitchens and baths can be the biggest potential WOW factor in a home-WOW the buyer with these, and you've made use of the 80-20 rule. Making upgrades to kitchen and baths can be a major investment. It is easy to over-improve or spend money on the wrong items. The key is to consider what money you spend is what will give you the largest mass appeal. Let's say one homeowner decided to add a backsplash and more cabinet space in the kitchen and then updated the appliances and refinished the oak flooring. Total cost was $8,000. The seller kept the price comparable to sales in the area and ended up selling for $27,000 more than the asking price because interested buyers started a bidding war! However, you may not have to invest even that much. New hardware on older cabinets, new countertops, a new sink and impressive kitchen faucet can be all you need. In the widows home that helped rehab, we just painted the old cabinets white, put on new hardware, installed a new kitchen sink with a high- end looking (but not costing), 1 new base cabinet, and new in- stock granite-look prefab counters for less than $2000. The kitchen was clean, timely and the "house jewelry" as I call it, which looks impressive, but isn't, helped to sell the house quickly, for more money. Her total cost on the remodel was $27000, about half what other contractors had told her, and her added net profit was $50,000 more. The lesson here? You do not need to bust your budget to sell your home, but you do want to have mass appeal. Kitchens are pivotal in home appeal. Another case-in-point: Another widow had a 1980's home and had scrubbed the finish right off of her medium toned oak cabinets. I knew the cabinets were good quality and otherwise in good shape, but that in the current
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