Selling Mom's place-freshening it up?

Question

Mom is gratefully still in the land of the living, but is no longer able to live on her own. She and Dad bought a place years back, a townhouse built in the 80s in South Florida. Dad was not a go-getter when it came to repairs and maintenance so I took care of those thing when I would drive down a couple of times a year. Dad passed about 5 years ago so there has been no real upkeep other than during my visits. Our intention (my siblings and I) intend to sell it as is. The HOA is not friendly to renting out, so a BRRRR is out.

The question, after I empty the place out, how much freshening up do you think I should do? Fresh paint and carpet? New appliances? Power wash the outside? or complete update to get the maximum value out of it? Similar units in the same development are going for over $300k. Thanks for any thoughts.

Joe Splitrock · Answer

@Gregory Carroll given the hot market, I don't think you need to do much. I think you run the risk of just getting what you put into it if you do too much. I would clean it up and list it under market. State in the listing "Accepting offers through X day and will make decision then". Give it a few days and hold a couple open houses so people can look at it. You will get offers over asking and cash buyers who can close quickly.

Duriel Taylor · Answer

@Gregory Carroll

Good morning, nice to meet you. I First and foremost, sorry to hear about your dad passing. In terms of a number, it depends on the area. For example, if the home is in south beach the end buyers would expect  24k gold ceiling blades (lol), now if it's in a market more in land (sunrise, coral springs, etc), you could potentially get away with light rehab. i hope that helps.

Wayne Brooks · Answer

@Gregory Carroll Since you won’t be selling to investors I assume, you’ll be selling to owner occupants. They tend to look fir “turn key”, ready to go. I don’t know if you’d want to do a full rehab, but definitely fresh paint, repair any obvious things, carpet cleaning if that will suffice, or replace, clean outside…make it suitable for occupancy. I just did the same thing with my parents house in Birmingham.

Gregory Carroll · Answer

@Joe Splitrock: Good advice! I took a look at other units being sold in the same community and they are well above what I had seen even a year ago. Thanks!

Will Barnard · Answer

The only way you can get a correct answer to your question is if you run a full financial analysis. Get the as is value, a quick lipstick upgrade value with associated costs to do so, and a value after complete rehab to full retail value along with those associated costs. Then compare returns for each of the 3 options.

Gregory Carroll · Answer

@Duriel Taylor Davie, so no gold plated anything 😁

Selling Mom's place-freshening it up?

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