In the current market I’ve seen houses drop 20-30% of their asking price and still stay on the market for 6 months. Right now in the greater Boston area places that are move in condition are selling, places needing work (in general) are not. Dropping the price a few thousand won’t do anything.
OK. Fair enough.
But, will keeping the price the same and adding a kitchen do anything?
It could. Most people make decisions about houses in the first few minutes they walk through. A favorable impression of the kitchen goes a long way towards a buying decision. In many cases, it’s an emotional decision which is why staging a house for sale is so important.
In a tight market quality sells. Don’t give people any reason to dismiss your house.
I’m going to buy an IKEA-kitchen next month, so my info on them is fairly recent.
First of all, don’t go to an IKEA yet. One of the ways the keep the kitchens so cheap, is because the kitchen design is 90% Do-It-Yourself. You won’t get in-store help from the IKEA-shop-assistants to design a layout of cabinets that fits your kitchen, something most other kitchen shops will consider part of the service. With IKEA, you have to go to www.IKEA.com and download the Kitchen Planner. It’s a computerprogram that allows you to virtually fit the different cabinets in your kitchen. The program adds up the costs ands shows them while you’re designing, so you know what your wishes cost and where you can scrimp. If you’ve finisthed the design, and that takes more time then you might wan t to spend, you go to the store, thy check it for obvious errors, and then you order.
Dutch Consumer reports say the quality of IKEA kitchens is actually rather good.
My SO has just sold his house, which also had a crappy kitchen. The real estate broker advised us not to replace it, but to put it on the market as it was. The exact same houses in the same street, which were sold in the monthe before ours, had beautiful kitchens. They sold sooner then ours, but they got at most 40 % of the invested costs back.
But the market in Holland is at the moment a sellers market, so take that as you will. .
Most definitely need new cabinets. Plus we want to open the kitchen up a little bit. One thing I hate is the ceiling texture was done with a stiffle brush. It’s almost impossible to match that. If I have to pull a cabinet down (that I don’t want to replace as part of my “opening the kitchen up” plan, then I have another inconvenience on my hand.
I received a quote from Home Depot and they came in around 10K, which seemed like a lot for my small kitchen (seriously it’s like 10’ X 10’) and they missed some things that I know will cost more.
I called an independent remodeling company to come out and give a bid too. We’ll see.