Lisa & guest Keely Burd talk about the worst things you can do to your home!

Lisa:

Hi. Welcome back to our view where we talk about life travelling real estate. I’m Lisa Richard Hernandez, and in here today with Keeley Bird. She is my fabulous buyers agent. She manages my buyer’s agents and she’s been with me for almost four years.

So today, we are actually sitting in our beautiful hotel room in the Ritz Carlton in Fort Lauderdale, and we’re here for an NPL Notes conference where we’ve learning a lot of things about mortgages and notes and people investing in that.

We’ve come to decide that after one day at this conference, we’re definitely not in a position where we can give advice on notes. That is all new to us. So we’re excited to learn more about that in the future. But as a way of investing in real estate was really interesting for us, So I made some good contacts with people, and we’re heading home tonight.

Keely: I’ve been googling a lot of things that I learned a lot.

Lisa: I think we need to get a finance degree before we come back. Yes, it was very interesting. Overall, our market is doing very well, which is really good news. It’s kind of it in a nutshell. So, I started talking about different things and investors that we work with and looking at flips and some clients of ours that will buy a house and they’ll do renovations to it that they think is going to get a great return on their investment. And then we’re like, Why did you do that? It’s not a great idea.

Keely:
we just want to talk to you guys today a little bit about what we think are good investments for the home. What is general maintenance for your home and maybe something’s to avoid when you’re thinking about investing in your personal residence?

Lisa:
Yeah, So I asked him What is the biggest nightmare when you were working with a buyer that you’ve come across that that a seller did? Her very first thing was solar panels.

Keely:
Oh, God, Solar panels. Nothing can crush a deal like solar.

Lisa:
So I guess if you bought solar panels and paid for them outright, which the majority, I would say nine out of 10 people do not do that. They get some sort of financing or leasing program, and then you don’t realize that the new buyer has to take on that lease and they have to get approved for it. And they have to account that into there monthly payments, sort of speak.

Keely:
Yes. So the solar panels can be a value in the rare instance that you did go ahead and just pay for them and owned them outright, but likely said that’s just not what we’re seeing in a lot of times. These solar panel companies are amortizing these payments so that at the very end of the 20th year, your paying the most out of the light keeps going up and up and up each month.

So you’re 20, you’re paying 400 bucks a month or something for these solar panels that are probably falling off the house at that point. So be really careful about solar. Make sure you’re making the right decision. You know, if you plan to spend 20 years your house, then whatever go for it. It’s not a big deal. But if you’re gonna sell the house in 3 to 5 years and you’re leasing those panels, don’t we don’t recommend it.

Lisa:
Another thing we get a lot of times now. Everyone should have curb appeal and do you know, maintain their landscape and do a nice job. But it’s the I guess, what we call over landscaping where people are like, Oh, I just want, you know, $75,000 you know, have a $200,000 house on landscaping the yard. It’s You’re never going to get your money back

Keely:
No, you know, this is why those, like double edged swords, right? You can’t completely neglect your your landscaping in your lawn or your house just looks scary when you pull up to it, but at the same time over investing in hard escaping and elaborate plants and trees, it’s just not going to get you that money back. It’s just not

Lisa:
yeah, and there’s a difference between things that are regular maintenance and things that are like upgrades. So, like cleaning your gutters and having your house pressure wash is not an upgrade that maintaining your home. Just like the landscape being nice is maintaining it. Cutting the trees back from the roof is maintaining it, so things that actually cost money just because you spent money on it doesn’t mean that it’s an upgrade.

Keely:
Right? And the same thing goes that we were saying with Maybe you had to replace a bunch of wood rot like in Charleston where we live. We’re constantly battling, not humidity, in that weather. Right? So we have wood rot all the time, and you fixing your wood rot is not going to add value to your house. You have to do that or you will at South Carolina you won’t pass what’s called a CO 100 which is part of our contracts. Same thing with like soffits and maintaining your house.

Lisa:
Maintaining your crawlspace. Keeping the moisture barrier down there. Installing a dehumidifier if it’s necessary. Those things are just regular maintenance for your house. They’re not increasing the value. You’re not going to say, Oh, well, I have a good crawlspace. So my house is worth 250 as opposed 225. No, that’s just what should be done. It’s a it’s a maintenance thing.

Kelly:
You’re securing the structural integrity of your home\

Lisa:
Right. You’re not going to hopefully get less for your house because of that, because that’s one of our process of negotiating a big crawlspace dilemma right now. As a matter of fact, it’s probably one of our biggest nightmares of Of our job is, Well, we get the seal when under bag with our fingers crossed, hoping that the crawl space because we can see what’s done on the inside. So don’t renovate the inside of your house.

Don’t buy or redo all your floors on top of a rotted sub floor or bad floor Joints. Or, you know, especially a lot of these older ranch homes built in the sixties and seventies. And people are now tearing out the kitchen and renovating. Put a new foundation in there as necessary before you what put a brand new floor over the top of a rotted sub floor, you know, just spend that little bit extra.

Keely:
Yeah, Like a really fancy gutter systems, though they’re great and everything, but not gonna add the value that you might be hoping.

Lisa:
Bright wallpaper Wallpaper is very, very

Keely:
with particular. It’s particular to the each person’s taste right,

Lisa:
and I mean nine out of 10 times people say, Oh my God, I have to take off all this wallpaper

Keely:
and the same goes with like crazy paint colors. You know, if you’re gonna live in your home for a really long time, it’s fine, you know? Go for it. You can paint it purple, You know, do it.

But maybe before you sell it, you go back to that agreeable gray and the same with carpets, you know, crazy colored blue carpet, green carpet. You know, that is not what people are looking for and, you know, other just like niche design features people, you know, you’re sell your house the next 5 to 10 years. People just like nice, clean aesthetics that they could see adding their own touch too.

Lisa:
For resale. You want to go for mass appeal? Just like home builders have model homes, people just can’t see through paint and carpet. So if you say well, I’m gonna paint this green and I’m gonna put this blue carpet or whatever, and I’m not picking on blue and green, if that’s your taste. But what I’m saying is it’s not made for mass appeal.

Mass appeal is the neutral grayish. The tans, the whites, the creams, the you know, those colors, where is more of a blank slate? And that’s what you want to go for? I know my ex husband and I over the course of 22 years. I think we lived in about 11 and flipped between flipping and living in about 11 different homes. And it was until our final home that I finally painted the walls a color aside from Tan.

My mother was helping us decorate the kid’s bedroom, and it was Lindsay’s. I think Lindsay’s baby room and I want to paint at Nickelodeon Colors. So one wall was hot pink, one wall with turquoise blue, one wall was yellow, and my mama said, Are you sure you want to this. I can’t believe we’re doing this. and I’m like mom, I’m gonna live here forever.

Unfortunately, my ex-husband, I suppose he got stuck with those being colors. No, I think we actually painted that before we ended up getting a divorce. I think we might have turned into a normal, like light pink or something more neutral.

So if you if you’re going, if you have a certain taste that you want than you plan on living there forever, have at it, do whatever you want, but don’t expect to get a crazy return on your investments. You’re gonna have to neutralize if you want to get top dollar for your home when you go to resell it.

Keely:
Well, one thing I think that’s important to mention is that even people with fantastic taste and they’re ready to do some renovations and upgrades and modernization of their home? Be careful of over renovating for the neighborhood’s value. Yeah, let’s say just like, you know, hypothetically. No house has ever sold for over 300,000 in your neighborhood. Well, you’re not gonna be able to get over 300,000 just because you went ahead and did the Super Gourmet kitchen or chose tile from Italy.

Lisa:
Yeah, a $20 a square foot tile isn’t gonna get a return on its investment in a $300,000 house. Generally speaking

Keely:
Just go to Florida Corps got something cute.

Lisa: – 10:07 to be continue
So just yeah, definitely upgrade within your home’s value and at the same time don’t under renovate. I say that a million times. I live in a $1,000,000 home, and I say we need to decorate like a $1,000,000 home. We can’t just put in basic clothes features or cabinets or whatever that’s going to seem cheap compared to the value that we’re trying to maintain of our house. So it kind of works both ways.

Keely: It does, definitely.

Lisa: You know you don’t want to put something cheap in. If you have a question about that, ask your real estate agent or ask us. Send us an email. We’re happy to tell you what our opinion is of that. But ask an expert like it’s so sad when we see people that do these huge things to their house we’re like “Oh my gosh, no, no, they’re never going to get their money back.”

Keely:
Yeah, if they had just maybe consulted with their real estate professional, maybe they could have made some design choices that would enable them to have that return on investment. Or it’s not even, you know, sometimes not even about return on investments. It’s just being able to sell your house, you know, and do it quickly. And the people that sell their houses in the first day are the cute turnkey properties where you know when a buyer’s walking through a house, they are not looking at everything they love about it. They are adding up the dollars of what they have to do to make it their own.

Lisa:
And they have no vision.

Keely:
So even if you have this amazing kitchen upgrade, but your whole house is painted crazy colors they’re immediately thinking, “Oh, my God, this is gonna cost us 5 to $10,000 just to get the painters in here right off the red before we even move in.”

Lisa:
Yeah, So the biggest bang for your buck is always gonna be your kitchen in your bathroom updates and renovations, especially in older homes. Right? So just make sure you renovate your kitchens in your bathroom’s to the value of your house, like look at what the other people that value range are doing and do that level of upgrade. But,

Keely:
I mean, what would you say right now? Like right now, if you were to tell just the average homeowner if they said, “What should I do in my kitchen?” What would you tell them? What would you say would be?

Lisa:
Well, I mean, it kind of depends on what you’re starting with. If it’s a seventies ranch that still has the original cabinets in there and we’re looking to get 350, 400 for it, I would say tear the cabinets out, install new custom like a white Shaker stock cabinet, quartz counter tops and do like a nice backsplash on it.

Keely:
Subway tiles exactly the basic

Lisa:
subways out. And that’s you know right now kind of what’s in. But

Keely:
But subway tiles been in for hundreds of years, and it’s literally the safest available. Yes, just go back to those old old timey you know, New York train stations. And there it is, right there. Yeah, subway tile is never going out of style. You want to pick something safe, just pick a white subway tile. You cannot go wrong. There’s always exceptions to the rule guys, you know.

Lisa:
I also think that if you have already decent cabinets and maybe a laminate countertop, you can keep those cabinets painting the world of good cabinets and continue the hinges and knobs. You can get away with the partial upgrade with that, but then adding a backsplash really like well chosen backsplash really adds that just pop in the kitchen. That really kind of elevates it to the next level. It makes it. I think you get a lot of bang for your buck on backsplash if you do it right. New appliances. Same thing.

Keely:
Stainless steel. Definitely. If you’re upgrading your appliance packed with package, please get stainless steel.

Lisa:
Well, yeah, the new black stainless is in. Sometimes it just depends on how modern houses or whatever, but I think stainless is still sort of a mass appeal. And again, same thing, like don’t put a $2,000 appliance package washer. You know, in a $1,000,000 house you need to have the appliances that are high end in a gourmet kitchen in a $1,000,000 home that people are expecting of a home that caliber and at the same time, don’t over.

Don’t buy a $5000 refrigerator for your $200,000 house. So it’s gotta go with with what you have. Another thing we talked about bathrooms a lot of times. One really mistake that I’ve seen and people ask me this all the time. We had this with of listing recently. As a matter of fact, we had several feedback that were There’s no bathtub. They renovated the bathroom and they put a tile custom tile shower in, which is great. But not one of the bathrooms had a tub. So if your new family young children, you want a bath tub. Yes. People want a backed up further. Kids did bathe in. It’s just you have a one year old you want bath tub.

Keely:
Another thing that I feel like this changes like so quickly. Even more so sometimes than styles for kitchens and bathrooms is fixtures like light fixtures. So I hate to do this, but I’m gonna throw my parents under the bus right now. Sorry, woman.

They built a gorgeous custom home for the retirement in a coastal community in North Carolina. And it’s 10 years old now, so ah, lot of their selections are fine. You know, it’s a travel team backsplash, but like whatever. That’s fine. You know that gorgeous wood floors. There’s a lot of things that are still like a lot have a high appeal, but I literally call fixtures and their house Beauty and the Beast.

It looks like he walked into Beauty and the Beast. I mean, like the fake candles todo se like bronze, the total like, you know, bronze fixtures everywhere. And, you know, if it was now, you know, to coastal community. You want to do something like clean light? I noticed that, right. When I walk in, it’s like the first thing I see. And if I could do anything, I would rip out all the pictures in the house and put in something modern.

Lisa:
Yeah, We, my husband and I did that in our house now, that made a huge difference in all of our rooms. It’s amazing what the difference lighting can do. Oh, and we shop a lot on Houzz. We’ve gotten a lot of our pictures that I love because you can take a picture of the room and actually sort of try the It does like a virtual…

Keely:
virtual staging with the new pictures.

Lisa:
Yeah, you just you could hold your ipad off and it will show you what it looked like with that light in there. So that was pretty cool. Like we did that. I’ve ordered some things from Wayfair before that we’re just different from the standard. What, You’re gonna go down to the corner lows or Home Depot and buy off the shelf.

Keely:
Well, since I threw him under the bus, I might get my mom crops on something. Now you know one thing that she’s really good at when she’s going to design is taking her time and just literally looking at magazines, cutting things out. Like Lisa said.

Getting on the Internet and seeing what the designers out there are doing, you’ll start to see general themes those that’s like basically having free professionals. When you’re starting to look at the home decor, magazines and stuff, you don’t have to pay to see what the designer has done already.

So educate yourself. We already talked about. Just ask your real estate agent what they think have them send you, The home set up sold for the highest amount in the last six months and and see what those people had in their homes because that’s what sold in your neighborhood for the highest price.

Lisa:
What I like to do for my clients and your agents could do this for a tour week. If we are your agent, we can easily do this. Fragrant in the Charleston area is we send a monthly email that just keeps some updated on their neighborhood of what’s sold and what’s active, and so just kind of keeps you like your pulse on what’s going on in your community so that you have kind of feeling for where values are, what things are doing. And I just think it’s always good as a woman.

That’s one of your biggest investments. A lot of you know, eight out of 10 times. That’s probably most people’s biggest investments, their home. So keep a pulse on what’s going on.

Keely:
What kind of sleeper item on. Actually, when I purchased my husband, I bought our house this past summer. I wrote it into the contracts. We were buying a flip and they weren’t going to redo the windows. And I was like, You know, I offered a little bit more and put it as a contingency that they were going to redo all the windows. I think that’s something that people don’t think about.

Lisa:
I think I think windows are always a good investment. If the home is older and it needs new windows, not only does it help with energy efficiency tremendously, but just the hassle off installing them. It’s off like if you can get new windows and if you’re home needs it, I would say that is, you’re gonna get the money back out of that. Generally speaking, I think.

Keely:
And while we’re on it, another thing that might not get you the money that you’re hoping for is, like super expensive blinds. Blinds are expensive, guys. They are not cheap and if you go for a super, super expensive blind, you know, chance very probably are are gonna get a high return on investment. It’s gonna look good. will look awesome.

Keely:
binds half the price. We still got the job done and looked fine.

Lisa:
Right?

Keely:
And again, you have to really think about what was your end gain in the house. Or if you’re you know, if you’re living in your home and you know
you could be there for 20 or 25 years, a lot of what we’re talking about right now may not be applicable. But if you’re gonna be selling within the next 10 years, you really have to be thinking about these things and also like trying to stay ahead of the curve like you’re redoing your kitchen right now and you’re gonna try to sell within the next 5 to 10 years.

We don’t know what what’s gonna be trending. So going with what Lisa sandwiches the mass appeal clean aesthetic is really your best bet. You know, I’ve never seen somebody go into house and be like these white cabinets and subway tile are not going to cut it.

Lisa:
If anything, leave them to have, you know, they may not like, love them or that would be their first choice. But it’s not offensive. I guess what I’m saying, that’s I think that’s a lot of good information about update people. People ask us that question a lot.

KeelY:
I know that. We said they don’t go crazy on landscaping and stuff, but but curb appeal really does matter. You can’t ever get back that first impression. So I know that when I pull up to a house and the buyer says, Oh my God, it’s so cute that I’m already like ahead of the of the game.

So, for example, you know, maybe maybe a vinyl house and it’s painted a color that maybe maybe needs to be a different color. I’m not gonna call out any colors. I don’t want to offend anybody right now. But, um, you know, like, shutters were seeing this big trend towards these modern shutters. So maybe you need to replace your shutters. Maybe maybe need a new front door.

Lisa: Or just paint the front door fresh. A new welcome mat looks I mean, our stager. We work with Shannon Hawkins, that refresher staging all of our clients get a free staging consultation. And I would say that one of the things that’s on her list every single time is new. Welcome, mat. You know, just that that it looks fresh when you walk in the door and you have a welcoming and true way. I mean, they’re grabbing that handles the first thing they see. You want it?\

Keely:
Oh Yeah. Okay. And that’s the other thing, too. It’s like I’m showing people a house and they’re the locker. The door handles so old that we could barely get in. that’s so bad. Just go buy a new door knob. Not people are like, that’s just already like Okay, something hasn’t been taken care of.

Lisa:

Yes, or it’s gonna be difficult. And it’s funny because I think that a lot of people just don’t really even use their front doors like they might come in through the garage, so they don’t realize it. So, like, if you’re gonna put your home on the market, go walk up, pull up to your front, walk up the front path in the front door like you would if you were a guest coming to your house. And another thing, speaking of like a guest coming to your house, it’s so funny because if you don’t use like, all the rooms and things like that and you’re house, you don’t really maybe noticed them.

For example, I have a girls weekend at my house, like once a year, and I like 30 women spend the night. And so I try and get everything ready and make sure everything’s clean. Before that, we’ll never fails. My girlfriends would come down and be like, you know that whatever thing is often this kid’s room and this is happening and I’m like, there’s no light bulbs in here and you’re going I don’t have any idea. Why don’t those kids tell me those Staff.

Keely
Because you know, teenagers, and they’re never going to tell you that stuff.

Lisa:
Yeah, so, like, if you have a guest room, go in there and sit down on the toilet and look around. This is what people would see if they use this bathroom. It was kind of eye opening sometimes, and now I really try hard before girls weekends to do all those things that I’m like, George there’s no lights in the vanity and at the girl’s bathroom and the towel rack is falling off the wall and you know, the shower curtain liner is like filthy black like, Why don’t these kids ever tell me?

But I don’t ever use those bathrooms to go up there so little things like that that you don’t think about. You wanna pay attention to when you’re getting ready for your house, bound the market.

And I think I think that’s a real value that we add to our clients is having that professional staging consultation. You having the professional come in and tell you exactly what you do in giving you like a list?

But that’s sort of a different whole topic. Getting the house ready for sale. It’s supposed to already owning it and think, OK, what what should we do? Like we know we want to do some things, but What can we get our money out of?

Keely:
Yeah, So I think for people listening, the biggest point is just use your resources. You already have your real estate agent. You’re listening to us. Call us. You know, let us know what we can do to help your we’re have this kind of stuff. Interests us. So even if you’re, you know, Arizona or something, we don’t care if you want to see your house. We’re always interested and send us pictures.

Lisa: So you can reach us at our on Instagram at Rview podcast, and you can send us a message there. Or you can email me at [email protected]. And we love your questions, If you like our podcast subscribe and like and share it with their friends is the best compliment we can have and give us a review.

We would love reviews, send us your ideas for any other podcasts or any other real estate stuff you would like to hear about Keely’s the wall of knowledge in the Charleston area. If you’re interested in moving to the Charleston area. We have lots of things we can share with you about new construction developments, a lot of business and marketing going into the Charleston area. So we’re happy to help and use us as a resource. We want to add value to our friendship.

Keely:
Yes, yes. Lisa, thank you for having me on the podcast today.

Lisa:
Thanks for being here Keely. We need go back to this conference and Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m gonna go start working on my finance degree, and we’ll have more information on that next time we talk. Have a great day. Thanks,

Keely
Bye guys.