Every home buyer has a different process for finding a home. Twenty years ago, we drove around looking for yard signs in our favorite neighborhoods. Today, we jump on the Internet and have a multitude of search tools and a mountain of information and interior photos available to us. Whatever process we use to create a list of homes that meet our unique needs for location, size, style, features and price, we need to be careful not to leave a potentially great home off our list just because of a few imperfections.
Many times, I’ve heard buyers say about homes they’ve looked at online, “I’d go look at that home if only it didn’t have (fill in the blank).” Perhaps they didn’t like the paint colors in the bedrooms, the living room carpet, the kitchen floor, the kitchen counters, the kitchen cabinets, or the wrought iron handrails on the central staircase to the upper floor. What all these things have in common is that they can be easily changed. They are the small stuff.
OK, I understand that what is small stuff to one buyer might be a huge expense to another buyer. Certainly roof replacement, foundation repair, massive termite damage, electrical hazards, and ancient plumbing are potentially major problems. Each buyer should decide for themselves what could be a large or small issue when looking at an undesirable feature of a home based upon their financial (and some would add… emotional) resources.
But before we pass on a home that meets all our expectations for location, size, style and price, we should take a look at the features we don’t like and determine if they can be changed. Are they, for us, small stuff? Is our budget sufficient to make these minor changes, thus providing us with the perfect (or near-perfect) home?
Fixing minor imperfections may be added to our purchasing budget, but they can also be used as negotiating points during the offer process:
· Is the kitchen floor worn to the point that it obviously needs replacement? $1,000 discount.
· Did the property inspector find a leaky faucet in the upstairs bathroom? $250 discount.
· Are the kitchen counters scared by knife marks and dings from heavy pans? $2,500 discount.
· And so on…
Very few homes on the market are perfect. But if we don’t sweat the small stuff, the right home may be just around the corner.
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Questions? Drop me a line at john@jsrealproperty.com .
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