If you are one of the lucky few to own one of those 1940s or 1950s Sacramento ranch or cottage style homes, you probably have hardwood floors throughout your house. Most people have never looked underneath the carpet to know. I urge you to do so. One home I owned had sticky vinyl squares pasted on top of the beautiful hardwood. Many cleaning agent fumes later, all the vinyl was taken off to reveal hardwood.
Any easy way to know if you have hardwood throughout the house is to look into the closet. If the closets have hardwood - usually not covered by carpet - chances are the entire house has hardwood floors.
The pictures are from one of my rental units and are not retouched. Look at the difference!
The hard part of this is getting all the furniture out, but it's so worth it. Get the floors refinished. You can do this yourself, but it's much easier to pay someone to do it and refinishing floors doesn't cost an exorbitant amount. I recently had about 700 square feet of flooring refinished for $1700.
If you are considering putting your home on the market and have hardwood floors, it is absolutely imperative you get them refinished. Buyers love walking into a home with gleaming floors when you open the main door.
As I like to call it, it creates the "wow" factor of a home and gives a fantastic first impression.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Adding Value to your Home Regardless of the Sacramento Housing Market - Tip #2
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Believe it or not, Purva, I look forward to the day I can call a home my own. But I'm all about establishing a worth on something and paying that. Anyway, here's another piece of the sky falling...
Analysts Say Mortgage Woes May Worsen
http://tinyurl.com/3e46fg
I've given you flak in the past because I think that you are irrationally optomistic about the next 2-4 years of real estate.
However this post was very good, and very helpful to wanna-be investors. As hardwood is back in, and will likely be in for many years to come, discovering hardwood under carpet in an old home can provide you with an inexpensive and quick upgrade.
You can make a home looks much more luxurious in a single weekend.
Tyrone,
If there's one piece of honest, heartfelt advice I can give you, it is to buy a modest home in the next year. Don't try to buy your dream home now; you can always upgrade later when times are good.
But by buying a home now, you will ensure that you will make more equity than those others that bought a home at the height of the market.
Better yet, buy a duplex and rent the other side out while living in one unit. Have the tenant pay most of the mortgage.
You constantly seem to comment and make my point. (Thanks!:))
If the sky IS falling, this is a better time than any to buy a piece of it.
The Landlord,
Well, thank you.
But just to clarify, I am only optimistic about the real estate market as a long term investment. I have always maintained that downturns will happen in any market and must be ridden out.
Post a Comment