If Your House Needs Major Updating or Repairs, Now Might Be the Perfect Time to Sell It

Was the last time you updated your bathroom or kitchen a couple of decades ago?

Is the outside of your house in need of new siding, a roof, and gutters?

Is your yard overgrown, or the driveway crumbling?

Got plumbing or electrical issues?

If you answered yes to any (or all) of those questions, you may want to consider selling your house soon…without doing any of the work that needs to be done!

The chances are you’ve gained some incredible equity if you’ve owned your house for some time. In fact, according to this REALTOR Magazine article, the average homeowner has gained $240,000 in equity in just the past 10 years!

While you could tap into that equity by getting a home equity line of credit, doing a cash-out refinance, or getting a renovation loan to fix it up before selling, mortgage rates have risen quite a bit recently, construction costs are still high, and it’s tough to even find a contractor available to do the work. So doing the work could get costly and take too much time to benefit from the current market conditions. Besides, it’s easy to end up spending more on the repairs and renovations than it will actually increase the value of your house.

But most importantly, the current market conditions won’t last forever, or even that much longer. It’s been a sellers’ market for some time now, and there are signs that it may be cooling off. Yet, according to another REALTOR Magazine article, buyers are still currently looking for fixer-uppers. They’re willing to buy houses that need updating, or even to be torn down and built new, due to the low inventory levels and competition from other buyers. (And they’re still paying a premium for them in many areas due to the lack of inventory and competition.)

But with interest rates rising, houses not selling as quickly, an anticipated increase in inventory, and some buyers leaving the market, you may find that buyers start to become more picky soon. That could translate into having a harder time selling a house that needs work,having to do repairs, offer credits, or simply sell for a lower price in order to get your home sold in the near future.

So before buyers have a change of heart, you may want to capitalize on the current market conditions and sell your house to a buyer who is more than willing to take on the work that needs to be done.

The Takeaway:

If you have a house that needs major renovations or repairs, get while the getting’s good, as they say. Speak with your local real estate agent and see what your house can fetch on the market without doing anything to it. Once you know what you can get as-is, you and your agent can assess whether doing any repairs or renovations are worth doing, or if it makes more sense to put your house on the market as soon as possible and not miss the current window of opportunity.