Theoretically, the price of the house before cleaning should be equal to the value if the house after cleaning, minus whatever the cleaning costs. In reality, you'll get much less for your house without cleaning it, because human emotions.
A family came for the tour and before walking in the father put his hand on the rail, looked up at the house, and said "this place seems well maintained". Then they bought the house after a small pleasant (for us) bidding war.
The contractor earned his high rate and then some.
I.e. putting in an expensive door knob is a good plan!
Whatever you wanted to hear to make them the most amount of money in the(ir) least amount of time.
They are the sellers agent.
You should not trust them a millimetre further than that.
(I bought my current house based on a spreadsheet analysis. Doorknobs are easy to replace, foundations, walls, electric, a lot harder.)
BTW, a so-so agent will lie to you. The ones on the top, however, are that way because they get repeat business.
P.S. Read books on salesmanship. It will inure you against slimy sales pitches.
I was confused by the parent post too. Perhaps they mean that you see the neighbourhood before you even see the house. A little like the first impression of the house is made before even seeing the actual house.
> All were compromises in various ways
That's true of just about everything.
Did we rule looking at something based on photos/descriptions? Yes, certainly.
You can learn a lot from such experiences. What to look for/what not to look for, etc. Sometimes the wrong location will have the right house and you can dial in precisely the things that matter to you so you waste less time on future showings.
Of course if you're highly experienced and on your 4th house purchase the value for your time may not be there. But I've found it quite useful over the years - especially when looking at different property types than I'm experienced with.
If I tour a house with pet urine stains all over the carpet, it's only logical to conclude that the owner is likely not maintaining the rest of the house to a very high standard.
It doesn’t prove that you’ve been generally on top of things for the lifetime of the house but the inverse situation where you couldn’t clean one time for guests sure doesn’t.
A few things we changed right away: - new mailbox (replacing a rusted 30+ year old one) - lots of landscaping work (the majority of which I can do myself) - installed a wine fridge (I always felt it gave the sense that the kitchen was upgraded when we were touring places) - replaced old door knobs with modern matte black levers; ~$50 each
The house was built in 1968, so it's been interesting to think about all of the small things that make it feel dated that can be changed for not much money.
Mostly, I notice that they look like efforts that were motivated by trying to get a high price, but are limited to being fast and cheap.
So while I do note them, my perception of them is not generally positive at all.
I'd rather the outlet covers be original and clean than the new, usually oversized covers (with a slight color mismatch) I often find.
If I'm seeing caulk anywhere, that's problematic for me. When used properly-sparingly to seal things, it doesn't draw the eye at all. When it's used to hide sins, it's awful.
When I see sloppy caulk I first think of the time I'll need to spend to dig it all out. And then, I think about the time it will take to actually-fix whatever things it was hiding that nobody has ever bothered with actually getting right.
When I see new doorknobs on old doors, I'm mostly attracted to the outline that was left by the original hardware. And then I wonder: The old knobs were probably made from materials like steel, cast iron, and brass; stuff that can last for centuries with some maintenance. Why were they replaced?
Were the old knobs non-functional somehow, or were the owners too cheap and lazy to bother with taking things apart for a bit of TLC and preservative paint?
What other parts of the house were done fast, cheap, and/or lazy like a landlord who doesn't give a fuck? What haven't I found yet that they "fixed"?
> I'd rather the outlet covers be original and clean than the new, usually oversized covers (with a slight color mismatch) I often find.
Any task can be screwed up if someone is careless enough, but this is extremely easy to get right. If a standard cover plate fit before, it's trivial to buy a replacement of the standard size and appropriate color.
Cleaning works too, I personally just wouldn't bother cleaning a part that costs ~$0.50.
> When I see sloppy caulk I first think of the time I'll need to spend to dig it all out.
Would you really rather see cracked caulk, which means (a) the original contractor probably used whatever cheap rigid caulk he found in his van, (b) it's been letting water through instead of sealing, and (c) noone cared enough to fix it?
A new, not-oversize cover plate that actually-matches in color is fine. As you suggest, it is trivial to get that right.
But people screw it up anyway, and when they do so it represents a distinct lack of attention to detail. If I find that along the presence of other new electrical stuff, like outlets with USB jacks, smart home dimmer switches, and can lights with fixed LED elements, then... man. They obviously couldn't even get the outlet covers right. What else did they screw up, that I can't see?
Old caulk that was skillfully applied and remains in good shape isn't a problem; it is not broken and does not need fixing. New caulk that is well-done isn't necessarily an issue at all. Both communicate that a base level of positive care for the quality of the home was present.
But when it's sloppy, it's a clear indicator that they just didn't care much at all during the process. There's direct evidence that they were unwilling to put the effort into making a smooth bead of caulk instead of a messy one. They didn't care about that part of this small job, and by extension they probably didn't care about what they were covering up (whether it was good, bad, or indifferent).
Anyway, maybe the lazy fixes work for enough buyers that it does increase the sale price, and that's good for a seller.
It doesn't work for me, though. The presence of these kinds of things brings me more questions than it does answers.
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The answer that maximizes the price by satisfying all potential buyers is to do careful and correct fixes. If the quick fix makes some money, then a good fix makes even more money. Take the time to get it right.
Sometimes it's easy to find: The "soft" parts under the sink are a mess. Flexible pressure lines that are a mile too long, bendy pipes on the drain (this should never happen), traps in series with one another, bizarro-world TPCLALL-branded Amazon-sourced parts that simply do not match regulated norms at all and which haven't seen a UPC® logo ever... but that's simple to rip out and replace.
Sometimes it's harder to find. Drains that go uphill. A sea of CPVC pipes running in every direction, with dead ends, all buried in the basement ceiling. No trap for the bath tub upstairs. Mixed metals. Mixed plastics: PVC is fine, and ABS is fine, but mixing them together is bad (and shows that a trip to the parts store to get The Right Fucking Thing was just too much work, since it wasn't done). Bad or nonexistent venting.
The problems of today are caused by the lazy, quick fixes of yesterday.
I have a photo of the original breaker box that looks like bad AI, it’s so unspeakably awful - just this wild spaghetti of muddy corroded wires and parcel tape with bits of string and random breakers floating in midair at jaunty angles, connected sometimes to live, sometimes to neutral, sometimes across circuits, usually doing nothing. The earthing was purely accidental. I just ripped it all out, but not before the microwave bit me one rainy morning.
I now realize a lot of the bad bathroom smells are because of traps siphoning dry. Tho the general lack of exhaust fans doesn’t help. Anywho, AAVs to the rescue! And mineral oil in their version of a t&p valve if it doesn’t need to drain much to prevent evaporation of the trap water: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_de_s%C3%A9curit%C3%A9
Also make sure your screws in your outlet wall plates are vertical. I've found it's a key tell between mediocre electricians & handymen, and the real pros, and it gives me confidence (perhaps unfounded) that the electrical systems are in good shape.
What would be better is not doing anything and letting the new owner install what makes sense to them, instead of having them pay markup essentially for these placeholder finishes, but obviously we can't have any altruism on this capitalist earth.
But if these hacks do increase the sale price: When (if) you find a suitable place that has not had the cheap+easy hardware refresh, then it will tend to sell for a lower price than one that has.
And that's good for buyers like you, and me.
Anyone who takes business advice from Trump is a moron.
The bar is low and you’d still need to hand the devil a shovel.
It's trust, because if the previous owners can't even bother cleaning it up, what else might their neglect have done to the house? Maybe I'll need to change the house wiring, verify if any new paint job is hiding mold or infiltration... All that is the cost of uncertainty and uncertainty grows with distrust.
I was in a buying situation where my old lease was expiring soon, I had a second kid on the way, and the last thing I'd have wanted is to buy a place where I'd have contractors milling around for weeks or months to make various repairs. I was willing to pay a hefty premium for a place that's in a move-in condition.
I don't think this extends to "you'll get $10k less if you don't vacuum", but it's a common courtesy on a million-dollar transaction to maybe not leave a mess.
It's not because of emotions. It's because it correlates with other neglect that may be less obvious.
A good real estate agent has a rolodex of various contractors that can fix up a house to ready it for sale.
They would prefer to throw out an old suite rather than something that has just been fitted to 'sell the house'. The excuse is provided for them to make it their own.
What they don't want is filth. A spotlessly clean house is preferable to one that has been hastily tarted up with a quick lick of paint. It is respect for the buyer.
The photos looked like those fancy interior magazines. I will never know if it is because of my effort and investment but I’m certain that it attracted a lot of attention. People really want a move-in ready home that looks like the magazines.
I feel like this is 3/4 of a coffee table?
Amazon couch for $250:
https://www.amazon.com/Kingfun-Loveseat-Century-Upholstered-...
This is the latter.
See also: stereotype accuracy
A messy, shabby looking home also signals that the previous owners were likely not diligent in taking care of their property.