If you’re thinking of selling your home in Davie or other areas in Broward County, wouldn’t it be great if you knew what home buyers really want? With that knowledge, you could make your home stand out from the competition when you list your home for sale. If you’re thinking of doing some renovation, or even small improvements, here are some tips to help you get started in the right direction.
Every few years, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) publishes a report called “What Buyers Really Want” and there are some interesting insights in the 2019 edition.
What Homebuyers Really Want
According to the NAHB, new homebuyers rated the following features as either essential or desirable.
- Laundry room: 91%
- Energy Star rated windows: 89%
- Patio: 87%
- Energy Star rated appliances: 86%
- Ceiling fan: 85%
- Garage storage: 85%
- Exterior lighting: 85%
- Walk-in pantry 83%
- Hardwood flooring: 83%
- Double kitchen sink: 81%
It’s also important to look at what homebuyers don’t want. They don’t really want dog washing stations, laminate kitchen countertops, or dual toilets in the master bath.
Where Should You Spend Time and/or Renovation Dollars?
If you’re not planning a major renovation, you may not be able to come up with a laundry room or walk-in pantry, but you could consider upgrading your kitchen countertops. And, if you are trying to decide between replacing drafty windows or laying hardwood flooring, the windows might be the best place to start. You can probably forget about adding that second toilet to your master bath.
If your exterior lighting isn’t great, that’s usually a relatively inexpensive fix. It can also add to the curb appeal of your home at night if you put lights along the walkway to the front door, for example, or spots on the interesting features of your home. With the emphasis on energy efficiency, you’ll probably want to look for solar powered lighting systems, or at a minimum, systems that are motion-activated.
If you have a laundry room already, take an objective look at it. Is there anything you can do to make it more attractive or functional? Shelving, cupboards, places to hang damp clothes and a folding space are all things that will make your laundry room shine.
If you already have a walk-in pantry, it would be a good idea to organize it before you list. An overflowing pantry just convinces buyers that there isn’t enough storage in your kitchen. There are many ways to make your pantry look inviting. Making your pantry a showplace will highlight one of the features many buyers are looking for.
Try using:
- storage containers to hold bulk items like flour
- pull out drawers
- baskets to hold small related items
- shelves to store counter top appliances to clear clutter from your counters
- wallpaper on the back wall to dress up your pantry
The same theory applies to garage storage. You know what a mess the garage can get into over time. If you have room for storage in the garage, make it look good. You can get garage organization systems at places like Lowes, and there are companies in the local area who will put together a professional looking system and install it for you.
If you’re a DIY person, you can find lots of ideas for organizing your garage. If you have plastic storage bins, you’ve got a start on organization, but stacking them up means you have to unstack all of them to get to the lowest one. You can easily build storage towers so that you can remove and replace each bin easily.
You can mount more things on the walls of the garage by mounting a large piece of plywood over the drywall by screwing it into the studs for stability. Then, you can mount open racks or hooks on the plywood to get a lot more stored in a small space. You can even hang racks on the ceiling to slide storage containers onto, making use of wasted ceiling space.
Finally, you know that outdoor living is important in South Florida. If your patio isn’t the oasis it could be, that would be another place to put some time and effort. If you’re not ready for a large renovation, you can do small things to make your patio stand out from the crowd.
For example, if you’d like to make more of a statement, you can use pavers to expand your deck. Use large colorful pillows to make the patio inviting. Use a hanging candle holder to light up an area for late night dining or build a fire pit from curved paving stones. There’s just no end to the possibilities. But, keep lighting in mind, too. Hanging string lights can make any space look festive.
When you keep in mind what homebuyers really want, you can turn your house into a buyer magnet. If you want advice on how to make your house market-ready, you can trust the Teri Arbogast Real Estate Team to help. We’re Broward County Realtors that have an excellent reputation for excellence.
Take a look at our Google reviews, and you’ll see that our clients have lots of good things to say. We’re very proud of our five-star ratings on Google, Zillow, and other real estate review websites. We’d love to make you our next successful client! Call us at 954-242-8030 or send an email today.
