Home Make Over

Thinking about doing a home make over? Don't make the same mistakes that other homeowners make when they are redesigning their homes.

In the go-go days of real estate (which, at this writing, are a distant memory), houses would sell no matter what the decor and condition. People knew that their property would appreciate at 8%, 15%, or 25% per year despite any decorating faux pas or structural problem. Owning a house was like minting money and you didn't have to do anything to it to bank a profit.

When the real estate market hit the brakes, so did the hope for significant price appreciation -- at least for the time being. There isn't any room anymore for big remodeling blunders and decorating disasters - because you no longer have the option of moving away from these problems. You will have to fix them, and bring your home back to a condition where the greatest number of buyers will actually want to live in the home.

If you think long and hard about this, you will realize that no one can possibly afford to do a home make over and not consider resale in every single make over decision....you don't want to have to do everything twice. Remodeling is expensive enough as it is without having to redo again to meet buyers' high expectations. (This is assuming, of course, that you are the 99 of 100 people who can't afford to redo a home twice!)

The interior design profession is built around the premise that your home should reflect your preferences, your tastes, your lifestyle. If you want a deep orange living room, then an interior designer can make deep orange look like a million dollars and accessorize it to the max with just the right things that will make your heart sing. If you are planning on staying in that home for 20 years, then your investment in deep orange decor will be worth it -- for you. But what if, like so many of us, you will be moving in 6 years? Will you want to completely redo the deep orange decor and transform it into something neutral? Our experience tells us that you probably won't.

You think "well I just did this room 6 years ago and buyers can just paint over it if they want something neutral". And there's the rub. You are expecting the buyers to 1. do work, and 2. undo your taste. As we remarked earlier, this just isn't going to happen anymore (at least for the foreseeable future).

Our advice when doing a home make over is to use common sense when making your choices. Things that are permanent, such as walls, floors, cabinetry, tile, etc., should be in standard finishes that can appeal to a broad spectrum of buyers.

If you want to personalize your space, then choose items that are decorative or removable to make your statement such as pillows, window treatments, throw rugs, lamps, bed spreads - things that are easily packed away and replaced with items that are more popular in their appeal.

If you follow this home make over advice, you won't be putting yourself in a position of not having the time or money to neutralize your home when you eventually sell it -- a problem our real estate agent friends say has reached epidemic proportions now (in 2009). Save yourself the pain and anguish of having an unsellable home by making good, safe choices on the permanent aspects of your home make over.

Return to Home Make Over to reread this page. You can also go to Design to Sell Fast! for our plan to get your home staged and ready to sell -- which are good tips for keeping your home in sale-ready condition!