My spouse and I own around 10 properties in our area. One is a property he purchased before we met. It was rented to the same renter for 11 years with a manager taking care of the property. The renter recently moved out and as it is not a good money maker, we are going to sell it while the market is still higher in our area.
The renter didn't exactly trash the house, but her dog(s) did. It is a 1200 sq ft, 3 bed 2 bath. Our question is what to fix up and what to leave as is.
It had been carpeted throughout except for the kitchen and bathrooms. It had the original carpet from 2006 and it was disgusting, full of dog hair and dirt. My husband wanted to keep it and just have it all cleaned, but the house smelled so terrible and the carpet was so worn I convinced him to at least pull the carpet in the living area and hall and put down a mid-range laminate as we were thinking about just re-renting it.
After having the carpets 'cleaned' in the bedrooms, the house still smells terrible (which is not surprising to me). He is having the carpet cleaning company come out again because the carpet still is terrible... but I don't doubt they spent quite a bit of time on it - it just needs probably hours of cleaning to get it even close to livable. There was literally dog hair piled up around all the edges of the hall and each room. And let's not even talk about the stains.
I've been doing a lot of cleaning at the house myself because there is just SO much to do. Whenever the heat turns in there is such a smell from the venting system, the smell of dog is just overpowering. I have been scrubbing everything. I'm not even joking that this person must never have even wiped out a cabinet as there was still sawdust in the upper kitchen cabinets where the builder had drilled holes for wiring for the range vent. My last straw was after starting to cut what I thought was some gum out of the carpet in one of the bedrooms and finding it was actually oldoldold dog feces that had ground in and gotten stuck in the carpet fibers.
My husband is of the mind to spend the least amount possible. Which is all fine and well, but he thinks he is going to get top dollar for this house and I am afraid he is going to be terribly disappointed when either we get a ton of low ball offers and/or it is going to sit on the market forever. He even raised an eyebrow when I mentioned I was going to replace one of the (terribly stained) toilet seats for $6.
The house has ZERO curb appeal, no landscaping, older linoleum in the baths/kitchen, the renter painted a few of the rooms but did a pretty poor job, and it has all the original fixtures & appliances, no fridge or washer/dryer. My husband and his friend re-painted one room and touched up a couple others when we thought we would just re-rent it.
So if you read all that you're a champ. My question is, if we want to get this sold for a decent price, what do we fix up/replace? We've never sold a house, we've only bought. I know *I* woudn't buy this house, but I also know I'm not the most objective person here.
He bought the house for 102k 11 years ago. Looking in the area, nothing has sold in the past year that is in this kind of rougher shape... everything is nicer and move-in ready so comps are pretty difficult. Most similar (but nice homes that have landscaping, updated kitchens, etc) are selling for around 115-120k. My husband wants to list it for 112k and hope to get 102k at the least.
Would it be worth it to replace the nasty carpet with something inexpensive? Is there anything worth the expense to try and get more for this house? Am I way off base here? Help!
