Mom and I talked with realtor Libby Allen, recommended by, on Monday afternoon. She thought Mom – with $2,000-5,000 of work – could sell her house for around $160,000. (about $100 per square foot – with 1,600 plus square feet – not counting the exterior store room). She hinted against the rental option (and her team doesn’t manage rentals though she said she personally owns some rentals). She also hinted that the 1970s décor, etc. was dated and suggested selling the house empty (after Mom has moved out, likely to Westminster Oaks). She said buyers are not looking for fixers-uppers – they want to be able to start living immediately in a house without having to do a lot of work. She said it might take as long as six months to sell a house. She brought a lot of information about the neighborhood, including how much houses had initially been offered for, how much they sold for, and how long that took.
Among the suggestions she made:
- Fix some rotting wood on the outside of the house, pressure wash the outside (and hand remove vines if pressure washing doesn’t do it), and paint all of the gables and selectively paint elsewhere. Paint the floor of the exterior store room and the carport.
- Once out, have the carpet steam cleaned but don’t replace it (saving Mom about $2,500). Consider an end zone treatment to eliminate any odors. She was not overly concerned about nicks in the linoleum or the bulletin board on the door to the interior storeroom. Leave both as is.
- Get a new range hood – perhaps Braun – for about $100 – white.
- Have the kitchen cabinets painted whites and change out the pull hinges – brushed nickel or silver color – to update the look and match the appliances.
- Paint the whole interior of the house – the walls a neutral color close to the carpet – a tan color like desert fortress – and the trim and ceiling in white. It looks like we’ve painted the walls before in semi-gloss and therefore it may not be possible to go back to flat, and so a light semi-gloss like egg shell must do. Semi-gloss walls are OK if you live there, but – for selling – flat hides imperfections. Also, fix imperfections in the walls.
- For $40, get white ceiling fans for the bedrooms, with one globe each, and change the fan blades in the family room to white. She didn’t recommend ceiling fans in the kitchen and living room.
- In the hall bathroom, have it painted and at the same time caulk the vanity and get a new sink fixture – with a lever (?) handle, silver or brushed nickel – between $55 or $88- Peerless is most affordable, or Delta or Minerva (?). I believe she suggested touching up the bathtub too (?).
- Much more radical suggestions for the master bedroom bathroom: Take out the entire set of fixtures to the right of the toilet: the sink, lights, faucets, and cabinet. Get a pre-fab vanity complete with sink, and faucets – in white – and ge ta new light fixture at the top.
Keep the mosaic tiles on the floors of the two bathrooms – but go to a pool supply store – to use commercial bleach the tile.Extending a conversation she and I had about natural light, she recommended we get rid of the curtains and rods before painting so the painters can fill the holes and leave for buyers to install (Mom remembers putting up all of those curtain rods.) Get for each window - for $50 a window – 2-inch faux wood blinds, white. For some of the wider windows, we might get two sets of blinds if that’s cheaper.
She also suggested modernizing the three light domes on the kitchen ceiling and replacing the damaged door bell. Domes cost like $20 for a set of two – Postlander – silver or near white – 139989 – also use fourth dome to replace the dome in the hallway. Also get a globe for the outdoor light fixture. On the outside door from the exterior store room, get a gold kickback (?) to cover some imperfections.
Use a razor blade on a set of spots on the interior storeroom linoleum floor.
In the kitchen, spend $100 to get a new faucet, a high-rise, and use Barkeeper’s Friend to clean the kitchen sink (also clean the overflow sink next to the washing machine.
- Keep all appliances: refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, and even the washer and dryer – they can tip the balance if the buyer doesn’t have these.
Among the suggestions she made:
- Fix some rotting wood on the outside of the house, pressure wash the outside (and hand remove vines if pressure washing doesn’t do it), and paint all of the gables and selectively paint elsewhere. Paint the floor of the exterior store room and the carport.
- Once out, have the carpet steam cleaned but don’t replace it (saving Mom about $2,500). Consider an end zone treatment to eliminate any odors. She was not overly concerned about nicks in the linoleum or the bulletin board on the door to the interior storeroom. Leave both as is.
- Get a new range hood – perhaps Braun – for about $100 – white.
- Have the kitchen cabinets painted whites and change out the pull hinges – brushed nickel or silver color – to update the look and match the appliances.
- Paint the whole interior of the house – the walls a neutral color close to the carpet – a tan color like desert fortress – and the trim and ceiling in white. It looks like we’ve painted the walls before in semi-gloss and therefore it may not be possible to go back to flat, and so a light semi-gloss like egg shell must do. Semi-gloss walls are OK if you live there, but – for selling – flat hides imperfections. Also, fix imperfections in the walls.
- For $40, get white ceiling fans for the bedrooms, with one globe each, and change the fan blades in the family room to white. She didn’t recommend ceiling fans in the kitchen and living room.
- In the hall bathroom, have it painted and at the same time caulk the vanity and get a new sink fixture – with a lever (?) handle, silver or brushed nickel – between $55 or $88- Peerless is most affordable, or Delta or Minerva (?). I believe she suggested touching up the bathtub too (?).
- Much more radical suggestions for the master bedroom bathroom: Take out the entire set of fixtures to the right of the toilet: the sink, lights, faucets, and cabinet. Get a pre-fab vanity complete with sink, and faucets – in white – and ge ta new light fixture at the top.
Keep the mosaic tiles on the floors of the two bathrooms – but go to a pool supply store – to use commercial bleach the tile.Extending a conversation she and I had about natural light, she recommended we get rid of the curtains and rods before painting so the painters can fill the holes and leave for buyers to install (Mom remembers putting up all of those curtain rods.) Get for each window - for $50 a window – 2-inch faux wood blinds, white. For some of the wider windows, we might get two sets of blinds if that’s cheaper.
She also suggested modernizing the three light domes on the kitchen ceiling and replacing the damaged door bell. Domes cost like $20 for a set of two – Postlander – silver or near white – 139989 – also use fourth dome to replace the dome in the hallway. Also get a globe for the outdoor light fixture. On the outside door from the exterior store room, get a gold kickback (?) to cover some imperfections.
Use a razor blade on a set of spots on the interior storeroom linoleum floor.
In the kitchen, spend $100 to get a new faucet, a high-rise, and use Barkeeper’s Friend to clean the kitchen sink (also clean the overflow sink next to the washing machine.
- Keep all appliances: refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, and even the washer and dryer – they can tip the balance if the buyer doesn’t have these.
- In the yard, also mow and rake the yard more closely, clear out some sticks and debris, and trim the grass around and pressure wash the steps leading from the driveway to the front porch but keep some of the “shrubbery’ in the back yard – near the back fences – because this obscures the view of the apartment complex behind our house and the yards of the houses to the right and left of ours. On the whole, she liked our yards.
We’ll have t spend about $2,000 more at the end – documentary stamps, termite inspection, home warranty.
She can list this as a 4-bedroom or a 3-bedroom. She pays to get listings for the house in the paper and in (Tallahassee) Homes and Lands magazine, rotates the listing through her marquee on North Monroe Street, and gets the listing with about 20 photos on the Web. She’ll put a lockbox outside of our house, and when realtors stop by with potential buyers, she gets an e-mail that tells her who has stopped by, she follows up by asking what they thought, and then she gets feedback about what people do and don’t like about the house, which she’ll share with us.
The realtor also shared with us that there are 500 fewer (from 2,000 down to 1,500) realtors working in Tallahassee than there were five years ago, and she went from a staff of 14 realtor, to three, which she said is fine with her.
She also said in the past year she has started writing Christian contemporary songs, built a recording studio where she uses a synthesizer to play all of the instruments, and then brings in a friend to sing the lyrics. She even shared with us a CD. Her non-real estate Web site has the first song she wrote, about loss: http://www.myspace.com/libbyallensongs
-- Perry
