Tag: Home renovations

Expensive Repairs to Negotiate before Making an Offer on a Home

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Finding the ideal home within your budget is your first step in purchasing a house. Valuable money can be saved with a keen eye, a good inspector, and negotiation before a closing price is agreed on. The following highlight some of the areas that need to be addressed and adjusted before your name goes on the dotted line.

Termites

Washing and that fresh coat of paint may attract your eyes from potential problem areas. One consideration to thoroughly examine is the issue of termite infestation. The integrity of the frame itself could be in jeopardy by these pests. If found, the extermination and repair fees should come to be ironclad on whom is responsible for this before the price is etched in stone. Termite damages can add up to thousands of dollars in repairs. It’s important to plan in advance whether you will negotiate repairs or walk away from the home.

Age and Roof Status

Do not wait until the first rainstorm to find out that there are leaks. Water flows downhill so if you have a drip from the ceiling it must be coming from the roof. The importance of inspecting the inside as well as the outside of a roof is tantamount. An accurate estimation or proof of the roof’s age is a necessity in any home negotiation. Few things pop up more after a home sale than a faulty roof. Determine its status and get it all handled before the sale is complete. You need to have in writing whether the buyer or seller will handle the cost of roof repair.

Electrical Panel

Most of the time the panel will not need to be repaired. What is at issue is homes that have had additions during the course of their history the home. The theoretical max may have been reached and not even be known due to some do-it-yourself warrior work. In the course of the home electrical service and inspection, if any qualms about the panel are brought up then it is ripe for negotiation. Do this now before you find yourself with limited options in the future.

Air Ducts

The presence of fiberglass air ducts may be an impediment not only to your family’s health but should be considered in your bid. Air quality issues are often not considered but are the vital quality of life issues. Metal air duct replacement should be thrown into the mix during negotiations. This is especially important if anyone in your family suffers from asthma or allergies. You shouldn’t worry about getting sick in your own home.

By considering these and other factors, headaches can be alleviated and money saved. Do not have any qualms about bringing these matters to attend. This is a huge investment and should be handled with care. Your family is your most valuable asset and you want to find a home that will provide them with a steady roof over their head for years to come.

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Home Renovations That Draw the Highest Price

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

 

Investing your money into a property that you intend to resell can potentially earn you a nice profit. However, not all home improvements will guarantee you a profit. It’s crucial that you know where to invest your money so that it will increase the resale value of the home when you go to sell it. Throughout the years, I’ve rehabbed 300+ Orlando homes and through my own experiences both as an investor as well as an Orlando real estate agent,  I’ve compiled a list of home renovations which have given me the best return on my investment dollars.

 

Here are the top renovations that you can add to an investment property that will get you the highest return on your money.

The Kitchen- The kitchen is the most used room in the house and should be one of the main focal points of a re-model. Quality cabinetry, counter tops and appliances are a must in a kitchen. No home buyer will want to buy a home and have to remodel their kitchen when they move in so I suggest not cutting any corners when it comes to the kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that you should get gold plated fixtures and top of the line appliances. However, you shouldn’t buy the cheapest materials either. Try to stay somewhere in the middle price range. I like to go to the large hardware chains and see what’s on clearance [usually at the front of the store]. By doing this, you should be able to get some high end materials for mid range prices.

The Bathrooms- Bathroom remodels come in at a close second to remodeling the kitchen. They are the second most used room in the house and should be updated on any remodel. A new vanity, toilet and fixtures are a must unless the existing ones are in “like new” condition. There’s no bigger turnoff to a potential buyer than a dirty and out dated bathroom. It doesn’t have to cost you a fortune especially if you do some shopping around just like you should do for the kitchen. Any money that you can save on a remodel means more money in your pocket when it’s time to sell.

The Floors- The floors of a home is usually the first thing a potential buyer will notice as soon as they walk in.  If the house has tiled floors and they look half way decent, then I will usually just have them cleaned by a tile cleaning company. A good tile cleaning company will clean the tile as well as the grout joints leaving the floor looking like new. However, if the tiles are in bad shape or they look tacky then you have no choice but to remove and replace them. If there’s carpeting, then 99% of the time it should be replaced with either new carpeting or tile. There’s a myth that tile is much more expensive than ceramic tile but this isn’t always the case. And even if it is a bit more expensive than carpeting, it might be worth the extra expense to have tile instead of carpeting. In my experience buyers will always prefer tile over carpet.

Paint- There’s nothing that will yield a higher return on your money than a fresh paint job. A new paint job will brighten the entire house as well as hide minor imperfections on the walls. It’s important to stick to neutral colors when painting a house that you intend to sell. Some investors make the mistake of using too many colors thinking that it will somehow impress a potential buyer but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Just because you think that you have great taste in interior design, it doesn’t mean that it’s true. Not only that, but if a potential buyer doesn’t like the colors on the walls this could be enough reason for them to not make an offer. My suggestion is to stick to one or 2 colors for the entire interior of the house. I like to paint the walls off white and the trim pure white. By using only one or two colors throughout the whole interior the house will look new, elegant and best of all… it’s much cheaper for labor as well as materials.

 

 

 

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Top 5 Orlando Home Renovations that give you the highest a return on your Investment

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Renovating a home can be tricky if your goal is to get a return on your investment. Just because you spend money on a property it doesn’t always guarantee that it will increase in value. It’s important to know how to spend your renovation budget wisely in order to get the highest return on your investment. Since 2004 we’ve successfully rehabbed well over 300 Orlando properties. In that time we learned a heck of a lot about Orlando home renovations and unfortunately, some lessons were learned the hard way. By knowing what the return on your investment will be on different renovation projects that you may want to complete on your property, you will be able to maximize every dollar that you spend. Going off of my own experiences as an Orlando Realtor, we’ve put together a list of what has given us the biggest return on our investment dollars on any renovation project.

 

Top 5 renovations for getting the biggest bang for your buck

 

1-Clean and De-clutter- Removing the clutter from a house and making it spotless should be at the top of your list of any renovation. By removing bulky or furniture from a house you will give it an automatic facelift and not only that, your house will appear to be much larger. I once had a client list their house with me and when I instruct them to clean and de-clutter their home for showing purposes, she fell in love with her newly de-cluttered home all over again then decided not to sell after all. And with the exception of a few cleaning supplies, there is really know other cost involved because this is something that you can easily do yourself.

 

2-Paint- A new paint job will by far give you the highest return on your investment. Not only does paint make a huge difference in the overall appearance of the house, but it’s also the cheapest improvement that you can do to a home with the exception of cleaning it. The best part is that it’s something you can do yourself and save even more money. Painting might seem like a daunting task to some, but with the right tools and a little internet knowledge, you can do the job yourself and save even more money. Youtube is a great place to go for any instructional video that you can think of. In this case, you would just type “How to paint a house” into the search bar. Another place you can go is the Home Depot and ask when their next painting class will be. It’s a free workshop and good for people who prefer the hands-on learning approach.

 

3-Landscaping- By improving the landscape of a home you give it great curb appeal and give a potential buyer a reason to want to see more. You don’t have to be a professional landscaper in order to do a great job in your own yard. You do however, need to learn some basic landscape design. Just like most things today, there are a million free resources available to you online on landscaping tips and ideas. You should start by trimming up any existing landscaping that you decide is worth keeping, sometimes that may be all you have to. I always like to add annuals to the landscaping for a splash of color. Annuals are cheap and really bring any landscape design to life, make sure that you install plants that are in season to get the longest life from them. Although I use general contractors on all our re-habs, I always do the landscaping myself because it’s something that I enjoy doing.

 

4- Upgrade the Kitchen- OK , now it starts getting expensive. However, nothing will sell a house like an amazing kitchen. It’s very well known in real estate that in a couple’s situation, the lady of the household usually makes the ultimate decision…”To buy or not to buy”. This is a room where you don’t want to go cheap, but you don’t want to go broke either. Try to salvage anything that’s worth salvaging, appliances, cabinetry, etc. On one of my very first re-habs , I made the mistake of renovating the entire house except the kitchen trying to save a  few bucks. The property ended up sitting on the market for 6 months and I didn’t get the purchase price that I was hoping for. Again don’t go cheap, even if you have to re-do the entire kitchen with wood cabinetry, granite counter tops and high-end appliances you should have to spend more than 5 or 6 thousand dollars which is money well spent for maximizing the return on your investment dollars.

 

5-Upgrade the Bathrooms – You won’t need to spend near as much on a bathroom upgrade as you would on renovating a kitchen. Like a kitchen renovation, investing in a nice bathroom is well worth it when it comes time to sell the house. You can get pre-made vanities that come with stone countertops in the 6 to 8 hundred dollar range and I suggest that you always replace the toilet unless it’s in “like new” condition. No one wants to see, let alone sit on an old dirty toilet. Even if you had to replace everything in the entire bathroom with high-end fixtures and furnishings, you shouldn’t have to spend more than a thousand bucks to complete the project and you can rest assured that it’s money well spent. People spend a lot of time in the bathroom that’s why it’s important that they enjoy their surroundings while they’re in there.

Do you want to know what your house is worth? Visit us at https://orlandorealtyconsultants.com/

 

Realtor in Orlando, FL

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