Putting your house on the market is a great reason to get started on those updates and upgrades you’ve been putting off. Conventional wisdom says kitchens and bathrooms sell homes, and conventional wisdom is right. Doing some bathroom and kitchen remodeling in NJ could dramatically increase the appeal of your home to prospective buyers, resulting in a faster sale and possibly a higher sales price.
Think Before You Demolish
Before you bust out your sledgehammer, familiarize yourself with current home design trends and determine what you would like to change and how you would like it to look. It’s important to keep in mind the architectural style of your home when considering your new design goals and to stay true to the bones of the house. Nobody wants to walk into a Victorian home with an Ikea kitchen. Also, be mindful that you’re aware of the trends but don’t make things too trendy. You don’t want people looking at the house to immediately think, “Well, that’s going to have to be redone in a couple of years.” Stick with tried and true looks with a few trendy accents that can be easily swapped out once the fad passes. Next, you should figure out what you can realistically accomplish on your own given your skill set and how much free time you have available, and what you need a professional’s help to do. If you have experience tiling and a few spare Saturdays, you may want to handle the back splash or new floor on your own. However, knocking out walls and reconfiguring plumbing or electrical schematics are tasks best left to those who really and truly know what they’re doing, unless collecting insurance money is an integral part of your ultimate plan. Keep in mind that remodeling doesn’t mean you have to gut a room and replace everything, so think about which of your existing fixtures you can work with instead of replacing. Maybe your cabinets would be just fine if you sanded and refinished them and installed new knobs, for instance. Or perhaps your floor would be passable with a deep cleaning and some new baseboards. In the bathroom, if you can’t make that avocado green bathtub look current, it may be more affordable get a fiberglass insert that is essentially a slipcover for your tub and shower than to buy a whole new tub. Resurfacing would be another option in that instance.
The Payoff
However you decide to go about it, making your kitchen and bathrooms the highlight of your home will pay big dividends in the end. You will easily recoup any money spent in the bathroom and kitchen remodeling in NJ when you sell your home and then some, so if it helps to think of it as an investment that would be completely valid. Consider it a savings account with a higher interest rate and faster accrual period. Buyers really do care about this stuff, and they really can be sold on a specific home because of it. If you’re serious about selling, get serious about updating.