I met with a real estate agent a few days ago to go over a Market Analysis for our house. The good news is that our house hasn’t depreciated much in value, but it’s worth just about exactly what we paid for it 2½ years ago. So this means we are going to be staying put for at least the near future!
The agent said that the market tends to pick up in this area around October/November, so I will be checking back then to see if we are in a better position to sell.
She also gave me some ideas for things we can do to improve our house’s appeal to potential buyers. My favorite ideas were new flooring and counters! I’ve been wanting to do these for a while, but wasn’t sure if we would get that money back out at sale. It was her opinion that we should be able to (as long as we don’t go crazy with top of the line stuff), so I think we’re going to go for it. I’m thinking hardwood laminate floors and some sort of solid surface counter, but I need to do research. Any advice is welcome!
I also plan to take out most of our ugly (and dying) landscaping and simplify the look. I hate how it looks now.
When John gets home, we will certainly have some work to do!
#1 by Trisha on 5 April 09 - 5:40 pm
If you can't afford or don't want to put down true hardwood, I highly recommend engineered hardwood. All you need is the sound barrier stuff (can't remember the technical name, lol.) and the boxes of flooring. It's a “floating” floor that doesn't need glue. IMO, it looks better than laminate and isn't as expensive as traditional hardwood. We put it down in our dining room in our house in VT and the realtors really liked it. We did too for that matter.
#2 by jovialjacki on 5 April 09 - 5:45 pm
Oh yeah! I think that's one of the options the agent was telling me about. I'll definitely look into that. Thank you! Was it easy to install? We're definitely doing all of this work ourselves.
#3 by Trisha on 8 April 09 - 9:17 am
It wasn't too bad. You have to cut the boards to fit your space. The boards are tongue in groove so after you cut, you just have to fit them together. This was the first major home project we had ever attempted and the floor turned out really nice.
#4 by Trisha on 8 April 09 - 4:17 pm
It wasn't too bad. You have to cut the boards to fit your space. The boards are tongue in groove so after you cut, you just have to fit them together. This was the first major home project we had ever attempted and the floor turned out really nice.