Before You Make Any Home Improvements ---Consult Your REALTOR®

A great way of demonstrating your long-term value as a "real estate investment strategist". Your idea to do the mailer is outstanding. Hope you don't mind if I "barrow" the mailer follow-up idea and pass it along to our clients.

To reinforce this valuable service, we have created pages and articles on this type of consultation for our clients websites. We offer a brief article on smart updates and remodeling tips then solicite the site visitor to sign-up to schedule a complimentary consultation to review a clients pending home improvement project.

Great idea! This applies to my clients too, since I have many clients who want to pull cash out from their equity to make home improvements. I'm going to borrow this idea as well. :)

Marlene you have been extremely helpful. I hate to see clients spend money on costly repairs and upgrades they will never enjoy and many times will never recoup their investment. thanks for sharing.

Marlene, great specifics in this article.  I'm a former homebuilder from Long Beach Island, NJ, with 350 second homes behind me.  Often a buyer would hire me to rip out what the homeowner had needlessly spent good money on.  Today in Tucson, buyers are tearing down entire houses built in the 1950s and building new where the old house used to sit (Tucson Country Club.)  Your clients are fortunate to have you as a trusted advisor.

Marlene, this is a brilliant way to get in the door. I like it a lot!! I've tried offering free CMAs but of course everyone does that. But, the financial appreciation from upgrades is usually mentioned when it's time to inform the clients that they won't get that much of an increase in value, just like you said. Great post!

Hi Marlene,

Great post!  I have a question.  Do you find that in consulting with families you go with stats like those published each year on the costs and returns on various upgrades by city... and/or do you compare what they are considering doing to their home to what other like homes have done?  I can see the great value of providing this service to homeowners.  I recently considered an improvement to my own home and decided against it because it would not offer a financial return.  While I would enjoy it and likely an interested buyer would appreciate it....they wouldn't pay more for it.  To me it seemed like a very expensive "staging" upgrade in that it would appeal and therefore sell but not for more money.  Anyway, just curious how you provide the answers they seek.  Thanks!

FYI Marlene, one of the most important things for someone to do is get permits. In this last housing boom, I had a couple of new neighbors get the home, gut it w/o permits to re-sell. In our area, the OC Fire Department keeps your home plans on micro-fish in case of fire, so they can save a life and know where to send their Firemen. When a staircase is moved, bedrooms relocated, it jeopardises critical time and safety for the occupants and the Firemen.

 Also, taking an older home and doing plumbing, electric upgrades without permits cannot proove that the work was ever done and the benefit to the new owner is lost when applying for discounts on Homeowner Insurance.  They will be rated on when the home was built.

 I don't know how non-permitted work affects the sale and liability to the sellers and the Realtor, but you being the expert would know better than I. On one house, when the short term neighbors were doing the work, they also started to expand the exterior. The City could not enter the home, but the owners were mad and thought someone had turned them in on the deck.  They had to replace termite and water damage under the deck found by the City Inspectors and get a permit for the deck. The folks didn't mind charging the new owners full price, but did not feel they should pay for the fees and Inspections. This ended up being a non-issue all in all in this case. The new owners came in and gutted the house again without permits.

I think you are offering superior service to your clients!