Should You Make Repairs Before You List?

Turnkey homes sell for 2.9% more. Fixer-uppers sell for 14% less. Here's how to decide which buyer you're selling to before you spend a dollar.

A lot of sellers treat repairs like a math problem. Spend X on the kitchen, get Y back at closing. It's a reasonable way to think, but it's wrong. 

When you decide how much work to do before you list, you're not running a return calculation. You're choosing your buyer, and right now that choice matters more than it has in a long time.

Two buyers are in the market, and they'll pay two very different prices for the same house. One pays a little extra for a home that's finished and ready to live in. The other wants a deal and plans to do the work themselves. The mistake we watch sellers make is serving both, doing half the work, then pricing it like it's done. That leaves a home unfinished at a price that says it is, and buyers see right through it.

The data put numbers on it. Last year, Zillow analyzed more than two million homes and over 600 phrases sellers use in listings, and the pattern is clear. Homes described as turnkey and genuinely move-in ready sold for 2.9% more than expected, and remodeled homes came in 2.2% above similar houses. So doing the work pays. It pays modestly, but it pays.

The gap is the real story. Here's the number that tells the story. Fixer-uppers sold for 14% less than expected. Read those figures together, because the gap is the point. Finishing the job earns a low single-digit bump. Skipping it costs double digits. That's not a thin margin; it's a lopsided bet, and most sellers are betting the wrong way without realizing it.

“Repairs aren't a math problem. They're how you choose your buyer.”

The fixer-upper pool is shrinking. The reason comes down to two buyer pools, and one is drying up. Most buyers in this market want move-in ready, and the fixer-upper crowd is smaller than sellers assume. Worse, that pool is shrinking, not growing. 

In one recent survey, more than one in five people who bought a fixer-upper said they'd never do it again. When a fifth of your potential buyers regret the exact thing you're asking the next batch to sign up for, you don't want to price your home for that group. 

We've seen this in our own listings: sellers coming in below what we expected by double digits because buyers want the upside of a finished home and will pay for it.

Skipped repair costs don't disappear. The part sellers miss is that the cost of skipping repairs doesn't disappear; it just moves. We'll hear someone say they'll offer a concession for the worn carpet instead of replacing it. But you pay for that carpet either way: in the concession, in the broken toilet the inspection turns up, or in the lower offers a project home draws. If you're chasing the bigger buyer pool, you might as well spend that money up front, where it works for you instead of against you.

Pick your buyer before you spend. So before you spend a dollar, answer one question. Which buyer am I after? If it's the one who wants it done, the work is positioning, and it has to be right. The right flooring is different in every neighborhood, at every price point, in every size of home. It's never just do some work; it's do the specific work this home and this buyer are asking for.

That's the conversation we have with every seller. 

We've sold both ways, and right now we have a fixer-upper and a finished home on the market at once, so there's no wrong answer, just two strategies. Call or text us at 615-315-9223, email us at homes@fykesgroup.com, or visit fykesrealtygroup.com, and let's figure out what makes sense for your home.