Updates for Resell Value: 4 Magic Improvements for the Market

Boosting the resale value of your residential property can be an amazing thing. It can be great to possibly turn a profit after you sell your home. If you want to better your structure and perhaps even enhance its value and curb appeal while you’re at it, these tips can do a lot. You should strive to make your home as appealing and undeniable as possible to prospective buyers.

Revamp Your Kitchen

Kitchen renovation work can instantly make your home a lot more attractive to possible purchasers. If you have cabinets that look dull and lackluster, you can consider resurfacing or replacing them. If you have kitchen floors that are full of awful scrapes and cracks, then you can consider replacement, too. It can even be nice to invest in kitchen island installation.

Overhaul Your Bathrooms

Bathrooms that look old-fashioned are hardly appealing to people who are shopping around for homes. It can be a downer to notice a faucet that looks like it was installed years ago. It can be a downer to notice a shower door that’s murky and drab in appearance as well. You can make your home unstoppable by overhauling your bathroom in its entirety. If you have numerous bathrooms, you can think about overhauling all of them. A bathroom construction cost estimator can help you figure out how much everything will cost. Bathroom work can be a game changer.

Install a New Front Door

Your front door is naturally one of the first things people notice any time they walk into your home. That’s exactly why you should make sure that yours is as polished and lovely as possible. If you have an old entry door, it may be an eyesore. It may even let unpleasant drafts into your homes in times of chilly temperatures. Exploring options in front door styles and colors can be exciting. Installing a new front door can breathe energy into your structure and its design.

Install Fresh New Flooring

Switching out your kitchen floors can make your food preparation space a lot more welcoming. If you’re doing that, you should think about switching out your home floors in general. There are all sorts of incredible flooring materials that can make your home look like a million dollars. Hardwood floors are enduring, stunning, and simple to keep fresh.

Enhancing your residential property can make it a lot more inviting to people who are shopping around for homes. If you want to turn your home into something that’s unstoppable in the real estate scene, then these enhancements can do the trick. Don’t be too lazy to try them.

How a REALTOR can help

Before doing any updates, call a REALTOR you can trust to let you know how much value updates can add to your property. The Craig Carver Group is always happy to help. Give us a call today, 281-482-9444.

Content by Amber Miessner & Rachelle Wilber

Cocktails, Crawfish, & Credit Happy Hour

Cocktails, Crawfish, & Credit Happy Hour

Thursday, May 9th @ 5:30 pm

Crazy Alan’s Swamp Shack BAYBROOK

Are you a first time home buyer? Divorced and starting over? Need advice on getting a mortgage? Need help with credit repair?
Join us for Cocktails, Crawfish & Credit Happy Hour! This will be a fun and casual introduction to information to help you purchase a home.

FREE APPETIZERS, DOOR PRIZES & CRAWFISH SPECIALS!!!

Thanks to our co-sponsors: Mark McVey Lending Team, Excel Title Friendswood, 700 Credit Repair Houston

For all your Real Estate needs, Call the Craig Carver Group RE/MAX 281-482-9444 or visit CraigCarverGroup.com

7 Steps to Selling Loved One’s House After a Death

Dealing with the house after a loved one dies can be an emotionally tough task, from clearing out the contents to prepping the premises for sale. Remember these seven steps when emptying a house and getting it ready to put on the market.

  1. Change the Locks

First step in cleaning house: Secure the premises. You have no idea how many people may have keys to the house—friends, cleaners, delivery people, house sitters. Rather than try to collect them all, simply change the locks. You’ll sleep better at night.

  1. Forward the Mail

Nothing screams “empty house”—an open invitation to thieves like piled-up mail and newspapers. Have the mail forwarded to your home or office by filling out a change of address form with the USPS. The post office will forward Priority, Express, and first-class mail and packages for 12 months and publications for two months, but you can annually update the new address for a few years to keep the forwarding from expiring.

Don’t forget email: Assuming you can get into the deceased’s account, you can set an automatic away message, requesting that messages be sent to your email address.

Receiving the mail will help you figure out who creditors are, too, and whether payments were current, as well as seeing if you need to cancel any subscriptions.

90795384
  1. Search for Financial and Legal Papers

Look for financial documents and even money in every nook and cranny. Sometimes people stash cash in the strangest places: taped to the bottom of drawers, inside crawl spaces, and yes, under the proverbial mattress.

You might find significant documents in drawers, file cabinets, and boxes under the bed, or saved as files on the computer. Here’s what to do when you find them:

  • Homeowner’s insurance policy. Keep the homeowner’s policy effective until the day the home closes. Increase coverage if it is too low.
  • Will. Look for updated versions. Remember, you can only file for probate with an original “wet signature” will (not a copy).
  • Life insurance policy. This could be a private policy or purchased through an employer.
  • Bank and brokerage account statements. Carefully read the statements, as many banks report all accounts on one statement.
  • Bill receipts. Contact creditors. Consider notifying all three credit reporting agencies to freeze new charges or requests for credit.
  • Stocks and bonds. Certificates might be tucked into folders.

Remember to shred all sensitive documents, especially those containing a Social Security number.

  1. Keep Paying the Bills

While you’ll want to stop some services, others need to be continued. As mentioned above, keep on paying the homeowner’s insurance premiums. Keep the utilities turned on, and notify services such as gardeners or maintenance companies where to send invoices. Contrary to popular belief, mortgage lenders still need to be paid as well. If the seller has a reverse mortgage, notify the mortgage company immediately and ask for time to settle the estate before they attempt to foreclose on the house.

  1. Sort Personal Belongings

This aspect of cleaning out the house may be the most emotional. It hastens the process if you sort belongings into three piles or tag them with color-coded stickers of three different colors:

  • Items to keep
  • Items to donate or sell
  • Items to throw away

If family members squabble about distribution, set aside the disputed items until all the sorting is finished and emotions have settled. Then try taking turns by each choosing an item or memento. Consider trading several items for a treasure you truly desire. Sentiment aside, get real valuables—art, antiques, jewelry—appraised to determine their actual value.

  1. Prepare the House for Sale

Clearing out a loved one’s house of its personal effects and belongings is the first step toward getting it ready for sale. Next, you have to get it in market-ready condition. Follow this checklist:

  • Furniture. If the furniture is old or worn, get rid of it. Don’t leave it in the house because it will detract from the sale.
  • Wall hangings. Remove them.
  • Floor covering. Consider its condition. If there is carpeting over wood floors, strip it and, if necessary, refinish the floors. Replace cracked ceramic tiles. Clean carpet over plywood or buy new carpeting.
  • Window coverings. If the window coverings are dated, throw them out. Most windows look better without heavy drapes or worn blinds.
  • Walls. Some people paint once and never again. You may need to patch and repaint the walls.
  • Ceilings. Replace dated light fixtures; patch cracks in the ceiling and paint
  • Remove all pet-related items. Take the outdoor dog house with you and donate it to a shelter. Selling with signs of pets in the home is a turnoff for many buyers.
  • Clean from top to bottom. Wash windows, dust ceiling fan blades, and wipe down the insides of cabinets.

Also, be aware that if the home owner died in the house, you may be required to disclose this fact to a prospective buyer. Ask a real estate agent about seller disclosures and whether a death in the home is considered a material fact.

Preparing a home for sale is always time-intensive, and when it was a loved one’s home, emotions are involved as well. But if done correctly, it will be to your benefit in terms of higher offers for the property.

  1. Call a Realtor

Craig Carver and his team are experts on selling properties during a difficult time and can help make the process smooth and undemanding.  From providing a property value evaluation, home staging report and providing resources such as local estate sale experts, yard and maintenance crew to help you sell your loved ones property quickly and for top dollar.

By Elizabeth Weintraub and additions by Amber Miessner

Emotion vs. Reason in Real Estate

Reason in Real Estate

If you are selling a home, real estate agents will usually refer to it as a “house or property.” If you are buying a house, agents will often refer to it as a “home.”  Why?

Because when you are buying a home, it is more than just a purchase. It is where you go home after a hard day on the job. It is where you lovingly watch your kids grow. It is where you watch the Super Bowl, barbecue in the back yard with your neighbors or have a birthday party. Do you remember your childhood home? Think of all the memories.

You aren’t buying a space to eat and sleep. You’re moving into your private safe haven. A place you can call home for years.

Someday, you will sell that house, and when you do – it becomes someone else’s home. If you’re still thinking of it as your home, selling is more difficult.

How do you let go?

It is very difficult, but necessary. To sell your home effectively, you need to make rational decisions. You need to let go of all the little touches you’ve added to the property and not be connected emotionally. Most home improvements don’t add as much value as you might think — they might not have as much appeal to a potential buyer as they do to you.

The buyer is looking at your house and imagining it as his or her home. You need to help them! So take your photos off the wall. Remove the sports trophies from the fireplace mantle. Clean the junk out of those drawers in the kitchen. Remove whatever you may have accumulated in your garage or attic. If you want to keep it, put it in storage and pick it up when you move.

Sell a house. Help someone else find a home because YOU may be looking at a HOUSE to call HOME. So remember if you are buying or selling, there are TWO sides and keep emotions and logic in check.

To help you with all your needs, The Craig Carver Group understands all aspects of buying and selling.

Call 281-482-9444 . 

About Craig

Craig is the Team Leader at Craig Carver Group and has been in the real estate business since 1994, he is a Top Producing agent for RE/MAX. Whether buying or selling a home he is here to make the process as stress free as possible and to ensure that you have the best experience buying or selling your home. Craig really cares about the community and is always happy to help his clients. The market is always changing just like the ever-changing needs of his clients and Craig is always up to date on the latest technology and marketing tools to get your home sold as quickly as possible. Choosing Craig Carver as your agent is the right choice, call us today!
Meet The Team

Contact Us

Craig Carver Realtor® – RE/MAX
1212 Winding Way  Suite A,
Friendswood, TX 77546

281-482-9444

Habla Espanol