Nothing 'Cute' About Real Estate
Stan Humphries, Zillow's chief economist and the co-author of Zillow Talks: The New Rules of Real Estate (Grand Central Publishing, 2015), delves into the data of today's home-selling, including why it's better to renovate the bathroom than the kitchen and why putting "cute" in your listing will lower the selling price.
Here are three things we learned from Humphries:
Don’t buy the worst house in the best neighborhood.
“It’s the worst house for a reason,” he warned, and data shows it won’t appreciate in value to catch up with your neighbors’. The best house, on the other hand, will appreciate in value at the same rate as the middle range in the neighborhood.
Don’t get rid of your tub, but do renovate your bathroom before your kitchen.
If your buyers might have children or are planning on aging in your home, then don’t get rid of that bathtub because it’s a draw. But data shows that renovating your bathroom is a better return-on-investment (ROI) than your kitchen. Everyone appreciates a great toilet, but kitchen taste is more specific. So put your money there – “instead of your backsplash.”
A low-end or mid-range bathroom renovation will return the most money, so also don’t spring for the most luxurious fixtures.
Pay attention to where the Starbucks is.
It’s called “The Starbucks Effect.” “If you have a home within a quarter-mile of a Starbucks… your home price appreciated 96 percent over a 17-year period.” That number drops the further away you get from the store. That’s because Starbucks does research on new locations in “hot” neighborhoods.
