Guidelines to Improvements to an older home

If you are fortunate enough to live in an old house, proceed with caution if you plan to sell it within the next year and feel you need to "improve" it.  Before spending over $1000 on a new kitchen, bath, or other major projects, consult an experienced Realtor who deals frequently with selling old houses.  We often find that sellers jump into projects which suit their taste, but may not fit in with future buyers' taste.  I have seen sellers tear out walls and install baths just to update an old house right before putting it on the market.  The problem is, it may look great in your eyes but net you less than  if you had just sold it "as is" to one of the buyers who frequently want to buy a reasonably priced home and perhaps retain more of the old house feel and put in their own "sweat equity" doing so.

It is similar to my putting a new transmission  in a car before selling it, only to find out the mechanic who bought it would have done the work himself and saved me the over $2000 I spent on the transmission.