Following the housing market can feel like hopping on a roller coaster, especially lately. “It’s a seller’s market!” “A buyer’s market!” “The sky is falling…will a slate roof save me?!”
Political whiplash, the economy, and, not so long ago, a pandemic caused fluctuations beyond the seller’s control. However, you can feel empowered to take steps to improve your home’s value, regardless of where the market stands. While a splurge-worthy kitchen remodel might be tempting — and could help, in some instances — many of the tried, true and market-trend-proof ways to boost your home’s worth and offer prices require lower financial investments.
To help you get moving, we spoke with two East End realtors who specialize in North Fork and Hamptons homes.
Declutter
At the risk of sounding like your parents, clean your room(s).
“I always say, ‘Look at your room and take at least one-third of the stuff out of it,’” says Judi A. Desiderio, a licensed real estate broker, managing partner and senior vice president at William Raveis Real Estate. “Clean out piles of magazines. Try making it as vanilla as possible so prospective buyers can see their family, furniture and personal tastes in the spaces.”
The aim is to make the home or condo look like a model. Kristy Naddell, a North Fork-focused Douglas Elliman real estate agent, echoes these sentiments.
“The most important thing is depersonalization,” Naddell stresses. “When you walk into a home, you don’t want personal photography or anything there that would connect the current owner to the property.”
Naddell suggests restaging the home with white linens, fresh flowers and simple throw pillows. She often brings in a stager for homes that are struggling to sell. “She moves things around, removes some items and gets a full-price offer the next day,” Naddell says.
Paint
Desiderio’s mention of vanilla was both figurative and literal. If you choose the right hue, a fresh coat of paint is another way to boost your home’s value instantly.
“Use different shades of white,” Desiderio says. “There must be 1,000 shades of white out there. Pick shades of white.”
What about gray, greige and any of the other 50+ shades of gray?
“Sometimes, when you pick a color like that it dates a house,” Desiderio says. “You want your house to look timeless and right for the next generation. I would keep it all different shades of white.”
How often you touch up paint will depend on your home’s inhabitants.
“The younger the occupants, the more handprints from things,” Desiderio says.
The eye test is a good indicator. However, a missed scribble from a tiny tyke’s “arts and crafts” project gone awry and little dings in the paint can become almost like furniture.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to see your own stuff, so if you have a trusted advisor or broker you respect, let them look through the house with you,” Desiderio says. “They’ll point out things you don’t see.”
First impressions
Whether or not you believe in love at first sight, the truth is that first impressions mean a lot when selling a home. That’s why Desiderio ranks sprucing up an entryway as one of her top three tips for sellers.
If the bushes by the front door scream, “Welcome to the jungle?” Desiderio suggest that you call the landscapers to clean it up. She also recommends fixing broken screens and storm doors, chipped paint on or around the front door and other signs of neglect. These fixes are simple but foundational.
Don’t stop at the entryway
It’s hard for Naddell to curb her enthusiasm for curb appeal. As important as the inside is, the outside counts for just as much, if not more.
“Curb appeal, to me, is everything,” Naddell says. “When you’re going up to a home, and it has no plantings in front or landscaping whatsoever, it detracts from the vibe. If you can invest $1,000 in some basic landscaping — simple flowers — it goes a long way.”
Decluttering isn’t just for the inside. Naddell recalls a seller who didn’t want to do a fall cleanup and a front yard with leaf piles up to prospective buyers’ needs.
“If they had cleaned that up, they would have gotten $150,000 more just because the place would have looked fresh,” Naddell says. “It makes the home feel cared for when the exterior and the landscape are taken care of.”
Kitchen: To remodel or not?
A kitchen remodel can get rather costly and is not always worth it.
“I’ve seen people redo their kitchen, and then the new people come in and rip it out,” Desiderio says. “Every five years, houses on the East End get dated.”
You don’t have a crystal ball that can tell you what the buyer will do. However, Desiderio suggests letting a broker help you make the call (and focusing on decluttering, painting and the entryway while you make your pro-con list).
That said, Desiderio clarifies that a few basic rules still apply: Fix anything that is broken (like appliances) or creaks.
If you do a complete remodel — new countertops, cabinets, the works — the price tag can range between $15 and $500,000, depending on the fixtures and appliances you choose and the size of the home.
Whether those costs give you sticker shock or not is relative to your budget, but for what it’s worth: “We had a house for $12 million in Sagaponak, and the owners asked me what they should do,” Desiderio says. “I gave her [tips] one, two and three (decluttering, painting and the entryway) because the truth is, at $12 million, they may knock the house down.”
Build a trusty team
Adding space to a home can potentially add to its value, though even that will be relative.
“It’s sometimes space the current occupant needs, but the next buyer might not,” Desiderio says.
If you build it and want prospective buyers to come with a wow-worthy offer, hire an architect.
“Architecturally, it should come together, and some people don’t bother with an architect because that’s another big expense,” Desiderio says. “But an architect is worth his or her weight in gold. If you’re going to add space, architects are number one.”
Similarly, an interior designer can help with furniture choices, colors and trims, and landscapers can clean and spruce up your yard. Brokers are the Swiss Army knives of this whole process.
“They are seasoned, experienced and have looked at thousands of houses,” Desiderio says. “They can tell in an instant what needs to be decluttered, painted white and landscaped.”
Tune out the peanut gallery
A few people are not experts in real estate and home values despite their confident opinions.
ouse“Everybody’s got a mother, a father, an aunt and an uncle who knows everything,” Desiderio says with a laugh. “Materials and labor have increased exponentially since the pandemic. Before you bite off a big piece of the apple, make sure it’s something you need to do.”
