Should You Renovate Before Selling Your Miami Home?

The short answer: sometimes you should renovate before selling your Miami home. The long answer:

A big part of selling a home for an ideal price is increasing its value beforehand. It’s up to you and your realtor to look at your home from the perspective of a potential buyer and determine what kind of changes they’d find most valuable. 

Here in Miami, an outdated appearance can be an instant turn-off – as can an old roof or cast iron pipes without a crawl space underneath the home. For this reason, home sellers are faced with the dilemma of whether it makes financial sense to renovate any part of their home. 

Here’s how to determine if a renovation is truly necessary for impressing potential buyers: 

When a Renovation Makes Sense

Do a walk through with an experienced realtor about six months before you plan to list your home and have them quote out specifically what aspects of the home are creating a discount to the comps. 

Find out what discounts they think add up to – for example, is it $55,000 for a new roof? Then, quote out how much it would cost you to put a new roof on. If the price is less than the discount, it makes financial sense to replace the roof before listing. 

For more cosmetic upgrades, it depends on the marketing strategy of the home. If buyers are looking to build a custom home on the lot, for example, redoing the kitchen is not going to have a return, whereas if it’s expected that the buyers will be looking for a move-in ready home it will. 

Minor Repairs vs. Full Renovations

After examining your kitchen or the primary bath, you might conclude that only a few specific aspects look outdated. In this case, a full renovation might not be necessary. Instead, it’s more financially sensible to upgrade these aspects one-by-one. 

Little Improvements That Go a Long Way

If a renovation isn’t in your budget, there are plenty of smaller projects you can do to give your home’s appearance a big boost. For example, the value of high-quality lighting can’t be emphasized enough, especially in high-traffic spaces like the kitchen or living area. Installing new ambient, task, and accent lighting can make a space look significantly more lively and inviting, whereas poor lighting has the opposite effect. 

Determining whether a renovation makes financial sense is really a case-by-case basis. If you’re not sure if a space needs to be renovated or what kind of changes will be most impactful for potential buyers, I’d be happy to walk through your home with a fresh set of eyes. Certain changes may not boost your property’s value, but can help your home sell faster. So, get in touch and we’ll make sure you don’t waste your hard-earned money on unnecessary upgrades.