Home Owners are Still Remodeling, But Watching Costs
Interest in remodeling remains high, but home owners are more conservative about costs in light of declining home prices, according to a survey by Remodelestimates.com found.
The Web site found that Home owners who plan to do some of them work themselves rose from 60 percent in 2005 to 64 percent in 2007 and that home owners who don't plan to hire a general contractor rose from 25 percent in 2005 to 36 percent in 2007.
Before you do your remodel, however, take an honest look at your skills and decide, "Do I have the skills to properly complete this remodel, and if not, am I willing to take the time to learn to properly complete the project."
The key word here, yep, you guessed it is properly. Every REALTOR® will agree that a bad remodel is worse than no remodel in almost every circumstance. A bad remodel takes a home from "fixer" status, which many buyers love, to what is supposed to be "turn key" status, but isn't (only in the seller's eyes). These listings can be very difficult to market and sell if the owner has an unrealistic assessment of the completed job.
One of the most common do-it-yourself projects is painting your home.
Here are a few suggestions for the do-it-yourself painter.
- If you are going to take the time and go to the expense to paint your home, for goodness sake, powerwash it first. This should be a no brainer, but I just showed a freshly painted home complete with freshly painted white spiders in their attractive white webs. The do-it yourselfer rented an airless sprayer to evenly apply the paint, but didn't take the time to clean the house first. What a shame.
- When using two colors, cut the paint in in a straight line. This doesn't mean free-hand. You can not free hand two colors coming together. There are so many websites out there that have great ways to do this and it doesn't add much time to the paint job, but it sure gives added punch to the room to have a great cut-in job.
- Use two coats of paint. You may need three if covering a dark color with a light one. I recently showed a property where one coat of paint was used and it wasn't pretty. Don't fool yourself into thinking you are the only person who can tell your home used to be fuschia.
- In painting, preparation is everything, so make sure your drywall patch is done well, because believe me on this one, a bad drywall patch is not going to blend in when you paint the wall. No, a bad drywall patch becomes like a black eye when painted over. The paint accentuates the ridges and unevenness. Patching drywall is something that takes a little practice, so get a good do-it-yourself book or website and do a practice patch first.
I recently showed a home that had an angry owner who punched a bunch of holes in the walls then patched them himself. Needless to say, my buyers offer asked for an allowance to have the patches redone after escrow closed.
- Pick neutral colors if you plan on reselling your home before you will paint again. I know the new reds and dark greens are stunning, but the average buyer can not visualize their stuff in your red living room. You say, "Buyer's can easily paint and change the color." Yes, I point that out to buyers all the time (most of my business is with buyers) but many times a buyer still won't consider a home that they can't picture their belongings in and the chances of them making the visualization with neutral colors seems to be far greater in my experience.
- Paint your home before it obviously needs it. If you have waited to paint until the paint is cracking and peeling, you've waited too long. Now instead of needing a powerwash, you need to scrape paint and, more than likely, make some repairs to the damaged wood underneath. Think of paint as an overcoat for your home. It is protection against the elements. In my market, where we get 70 + inches of rain a year, that overcoat of paint is extremely important.
There you go. These are some really easy ways to give your paint job a more professional look. A good paint job can add value to your home and give it far greater curb appeal. A good paint job is cost efficient because the value it adds is usually far greater than the cost of materials, especially if you do-it-yourself.
If you aren't going to take the time to prepare and paint your home properly, I strongly suggest you either pay a professional to do it for you, or leave it alone. Your spiders will thank you.
Thank you for stopping by. Your comments on this post are welcomed and appreciated.
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Fran,
This is a good post to bookmark and print out to give to my painter, my wife! Thanks, Fran