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Comment by austinl | Hacker News Reader

Having recently bought a house, I love thinking about things that increase perceived value relative to cost (more so because they're nice to have, not because we plan to sell any time soon).

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.

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To add a few more: it's similarly easy to swap cabinet handles, vent covers, outlet wall plates. Fresh caulk is nice too, even if it's a bit sloppy, still beats stained or cracked caulk.

Those are things I've noticed when I've shopped for homes.

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"?

It’s the faucets and sink fixtures that can jump out at me. I… question some of the Amazon-grade ODDALLCAPS fixtures’ ability to not spring a leak in the long term. Showerheads are more whatever.

And the rest of the plumbing. I'm not saying that homeowners can't plumb properly (many do excellent work), but: Too many times, it's just ugly.

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.

You should see what I’ve seen in France!

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

And the wiring. Don’t forget the wiring. Bought a place that had a fault to earth. Took demolishing a wall to find it - previous owner had buried an extension flex inside a wall, just concreted over it - and hadn’t even done that properly - mice had gotten to it, and it was a corroded piss-soaked mess.

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 think it's safe to say you're in the minority. Empirically, "fast and cheap" cosmetic upgrades like repainting usually more than pay for themselves.

> 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?

That's the problem: Any task can indeed be screwed up. It can be worse than it was before.

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.

outlet wall plates

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.

That's funny - I always align the screws in the wall plates when I (re)install them, but imagined that to be an idiosyncratic bit of fastidiousness. I've never noticed anyone else having done it.

Eh. I've been working (at $job) with an electrician I will be thrilled to see the back of, and whom (the feeling is general) we will never hire again, and... The screws are aligned, but eldritch horrors lurk beneath. That might once have been a useful heuristic, but too many have caught on to it.

I hate when sellers do this. Replace all the finishes and hardware with the cheapest possible hardware from the store just because it is new. You end up paying for a top dollar house (because now you can argue its worth more than comps that didn't get this treatment) with bottom dollar components.

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.

I hate it, too. And obviously, sellers are motivated to seek to maximize the sale price, while buyers are motivated to minimize it.

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.

the little rubber gaskets in sink drains for garbage disposals are also a cheap upgrade the brings a place up a notch

What is funny is it is kind of going full circle now with the home decor. All the 70s-80s era finishes boomers are currently gutting and replacing with builders special grey modern blegh are actually becoming popular again among millennials and gen z buyers.

Trump wrote in one of his books that a person selling their car that does not detail it beforehand is a fool.

Did he also say you should cover everything the tackiest gaudiest faux-gold crap everywhere?

Anyone who takes business advice from Trump is a moron.

If there is one thing Grump does know, it's the value of fools.

i find it extremely hard to imagine that Donald Trump would have ever been personally involved in the sale of a vehicle at the level that he'd be making decisions about whether or not it was detailed, but I guess it's sensible generic advice

Visit a used car lot. The cars are all clean and detailed.

It’s not that a car needs to be clean per se, but you don’t want prospective owners to be distracted by thoughts of the past life the car has had in the care of another human. Nobody wants to touch the indicator stalk that has layers of dirt and finger grease baked into it.

Or in the actual writing of a book, for that matter.

I’d be surprised if he can’t write two coherent paragraphs on one topic.

The bar is low and you’d still need to hand the devil a shovel.

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