What Not to Fix Before Selling Your House

The short answer

Skip the projects a buyer is likely to redo anyway: a kitchen or bath remodel, trend-driven finish updates, new flooring throughout, and anything chosen mostly to your own taste. Don't skip what affects whether a buyer trusts the house: active leaks, systems that don't work, and visible deferred maintenance. And in Texas, deciding not to fix something never means deciding not to disclose it.

This question usually comes up while we're standing in the kitchen a seller has been meaning to redo for years. My answer is almost always the same. Let's not.

Why a remodel right before you list rarely makes sense

A pre-sale remodel asks you to do three things at once: guess what a buyer you haven't met will want, spend the money before you know your sale price, and push back your listing date while the work gets done.

• Taste is personal. The countertop you love may be the one your buyer plans to replace.
• Time costs something. Every week of construction is another week of carrying the house and living around the mess.
• Half-finished reads worse than dated. A rushed update that doesn't match the rest of the home can make buyers question everything else.

From a design perspective, a home that's dated but consistent often shows better than one with a single new room that makes the rest of the house look older.

What I'd usually leave alone

• Kitchen and bath remodels. A dated kitchen that's clean and fully working is a known quantity. Buyers can price in their own vision.
• Working finishes that simply aren't current. A backsplash, light fixtures or hardware that isn't your style is cosmetic, and buyers know it.
• Whole-house flooring when the existing floors are clean and intact.
• New features meant to "add value." A pool, an outdoor kitchen or a room conversion is a big decision to make on a buyer's behalf.
• Projects that need permits and inspections to finish when your timeline is tight. An open project is harder to explain than an old one.

What I'd fix, or at least address, before listing

• Anything involving water. A roof leak, a slow plumbing drip, stained ceilings, soft spots around a window. Water is the issue that makes buyers wonder what else they can't see.
• Systems and appliances that don't work. Heating and air conditioning, the water heater, and any appliance that stays with the house.
• Small, visible deferred maintenance. Doors that don't latch, missing outlet covers, dripping faucets, burned-out bulbs, loose handrails. Each one is minor. Together they tell a buyer the house hasn't been cared for, and that impression follows them straight into the inspection.
• Obvious hazards, such as exposed wiring or a broken step.

Where I would spend instead

This is where my background as a certified interior decorator comes in. Before I'd ever recommend a remodel, I'd look at what buyers notice in the first few minutes, because that's when they decide how they feel about the house.

When I walk a home before listing, I ask one question in every room: what will a buyer notice first, and does it make them trust the house more or less? Usually the answers are simple. Scuffed or bold walls that need a consistent, quiet paint color. Mismatched bulbs that make one room look warm and the next look blue. Too much furniture, so the room can't show its true scale. A front entry that hasn't had attention in years. None of that requires a contractor, and all of it changes how the photos and the first showing feel.

The goal isn't to make the house look new. It's to make it look cared for, and to let the floor plan and the light do the work.

Not fixing it doesn't mean not disclosing it

Texas Property Code Section 5.008 requires the seller of most homes with not more than one dwelling unit to give the buyer a written disclosure of the property's condition, with some exceptions. TREC publishes the standard Seller's Disclosure Notice. If you know about a problem and decide not to repair it, it still belongs on that notice.

A few other things worth knowing from the standard TREC resale contract:

• A buyer can accept the property "As Is," which the contract defines as its present condition with any and all defects. That still doesn't stop the buyer from inspecting, negotiating repairs later, or ending the contract during the option period, if there is one.
• Unless the parties agree otherwise in writing, neither side is obligated to pay for repairs the buyer's lender requires, and the contract spells out what happens if no one agrees to pay.
• If you agree to make repairs, the contract requires licensed professionals (or people commercially engaged in that trade where no license is required), any required permits, documentation of the work and payment, and the transfer of transferable warranties at closing.

Some sellers choose a pre-listing inspection so there are no surprises later. If you do, keep in mind that anything it finds becomes something you know about.

Fix it, credit it or price it in

When an inspection turns something up, you generally have three choices: make the repair, offer a credit or a price adjustment, or leave the price where it is and accept the risk that the buyer walks during the option period. A credit has to fit the buyer's loan program, so their lender weighs in. Which choice is right depends on what your home is competing against, not on a rule of thumb.

If you're selling so you can buy your next home, the repair decision also affects your timeline. I wrote about lining up both sides in How to Buy a New Construction Home in DFW When You Still Have a House to Sell, and Move Forward explains how we coordinate a sale and a purchase in one plan. For a sense of what's happening with pricing and inventory, see Seeing More Price Reductions in DFW? How to Read a Market Report Without Overreacting, and find more seller resources on our Sellers page.

If you're getting ready to sell anywhere in Dallas–Fort Worth, I'd rather walk the house with you before you call a contractor. I'll tell you what I'd fix, what I'd leave alone and what I'd simply style differently, based on the homes yours will actually be compared to.

— Katie Bankston, Principal, The Bankston Group at The Agency Dallas