Tampa Bay Blog

1. Refinish hardwood floors. These are a major selling point when selling your home and sometimes a home's most compelling feature. Often they don't need complete refinishing, just to be roughed up and polyurethaned to obtain that killer shine. If yours are looking tough give a couple of pros a call and check out the price. In some markets several rooms can be extensively refinished for less than $1,000.00.
   
   
2. Paint / Repaint Your Home. If your taste in decorating is a bit, shall we say strong, it may pay you to hire a professional to tone down some of the more dramatic color rooms. Many people love dark red dining rooms, but none of them may be looking at your house. Neutral colors are best for marketing your home for sale. There was a house, a very expensive house, in a "bubbly" Boston suburb that was on the market for a year and with a total of four agents. The house was in a wonderful neighborhood, had a traditional floor plan and a beautiful yard, but every room and every ceiling was papered in a different black and white pattern. Moving from one room to the next induced vertigo. Agent after agent tried to convince the seller to invest four or five thousand dollars in a professional redo (two of them got fired for suggesting it) but the owner would not budge. A sharp-eyed investor finally picked it up well below its original listing price, did the remodel and sold it three months later for a substantial profit.
   
   
3. Buy, borrow or rent what you need. If your furniture shows the effect of raising five kids or if pets have ruined the rugs and upholstery think about storing or getting rid of your existing furniture and finding just enough more attractive stuff to get by. If your nest is empty and the kids' rooms are beaten up, throw out the furniture, give the walls a quick wash coat of paint and put one or two small flea market pieces - a hobby horse, a bean-bag chair, the old bassinette from the attic - in the room to merely "suggest" its use. A rocker, table lamp and a pile or books in an otherwise bare room gives it the feel of a cozy study and so forth. If you want to go all out there are dozens of companies, some of them national, that will rent a roomful or a houseful of furniture on short term contracts. Not cheap, but maybe worth looking into.

If your house has a lot of competition in the market you need to measure up. Think of it as show biz.  If you need help getting your home ready to sell don't hesitate to call.

Christine and Walter