Should I fix up my house or sell as is? 🦅 🌎 ⚓️

 



Introduction: To Fix or Not to Fix?

Should I fix up my house or sell it as is?

Should I fix up my house or sell it as is? We'll discuss that, as well as the REO of the week, Cupertino or Apple house of the week, Mountain View house of the week, and the 40 days on the market report. Let's get moving here. You can sell it any way you want.


You can sell a lump of clay or you can sell a vase that's been spawned into a vase and. Kiln dried and turned into a piece of art. Like that thing right there. Absolutely. 


The Value of Home Improvements


There's an intrinsic value to what effort you put into what you're selling.


Now, if you're going to sell your house as is or a lump of clay, then expect to get that price. You can't come to the market and say, my house is worth this because the price per square foot is X. It just doesn't work that way because there's value in your upgrades, in what's been repaired and what upgrades you've done the location and how your house looks.


Case Study: Beach House Transformation

So let's take a quick look at, this house that I saw on the market. Now, before it was on the market, this is what it looked like. Now it's not a bad-looking house. It looks fine. Except if you look closer, there's some water damage It's on a busy street. Look, they have this.


Net there. I don't know what that's for. It's actually split in half, the ground cover is lacking. It's an okay-looking house, but that's a lump of clay. Now you take a few minutes or a couple days and you fix it up, you paint it, and you, oh geez.


And you put some mulch out there, you make it look presentable, you fix the water rot, paint it up, make it look nice. Then yeah, your house is going to be worth a whole lot more. I think it's 1. 5 million dollars, right? And this is in Aptos or Capitola.


It's a beach house. And if you buy in the beach area, you're dealing with salt air and salt water and heavier weather. So think about it, right? So again, would you rather pay 1. 5 for this, or would you rather pay 1. 5 for this? And let's see if they actually did some stuff inside to make it look nicer now granted.


Look, I think these are IKEA cabinets nothing wrong with IKEA cabinets. They have 10-year warranties, but they're not a name brand custom fit Cabinet understand what you're buying now. It's probably an Ikea Completely IKEA kitchen again. Nothing against it. Just know what you're buying And I feel like sometimes I'm an appliance sales guy because I'll never buy GE again.


I'll buy KitchenAid for the rest of my life because it's way more expensive, but I just spent 1, 200 getting three of my appliances fixed because they're GE and they're, Done with the cheapest appliance parts and pieces inside the components are just cheap. So if I looked at it from the five-year standpoint because I think I did I remodeled my kitchen five or six years ago and put new appliances in their brand new GE kitchen appliances I wound up spending more because of having to have my appliances fixed and repaired and all the parts and labor.


I'm not complaining about that. They did a great job, took a little bit longer than I prefer, but that's why you hire a realtor because they know their job. It's the same reason why you hire an appliance repair guy or a plumber to fix your drains, right?


Would you rather do it? Or have somebody lead you through it or show you how to do it that does it every day. 


Staging and Selling Strategies


Now, they staged this house, making it look nice and pretty and giving each room a purpose. This house is going to sell quickly. Is it going to sell for 1?


5? I don't know. We'll see this compared to this, which we should look at yesterday. This house is not ready to sell. This house is going to be on the market forever. Just the crappy pictures. There's no design to it. It just looks cluttered. It looks like they're not ready to sell. This, right? With a beat-up kitchen, the floor looks a little tattered. It's the chandelier in the middle. You look at this versus this, right? And this house is ready to sell. This house looks like a showroom floor. It looks like.


A model home. Is it perfect? No, no house is ever perfect. Not even the brand-new ones, not even the ones that are just being built right now. They're not going to be perfect. Understand that there's going to be deferred maintenance in old resell houses. Some things people just don't get to, right? So should you sell it as is you absolutely can.

FREE HOME BUYER CHECKLIST HERE https://abitanogroup.com/Homebuyerchecklist

Do I recommend it? I don't. But if you don't want to put the money, time, and effort into it, do I tell you to remodel your kitchen? I don't say remodel your kitchen. I say paint the cabinets, put new counters on top, put new silver or stainless steel appliances in, and make it done. It's going to cost some money, but it'll look a lot better.


People would rather buy a house that looks nice. Now, if you're struggling and you're a first-time buyer sometimes a house that's in as-is condition might be a better choice But understand people you're selling to a first-time buyer versus somebody that can afford a fixed-up house, a house that looks like a brand new house.

Home Inspection CHECKLIST HERE https://abitanogroup.com/homeinspectionchecklist

And a first-time buyer can't afford a higher-end house. So just keep that in mind. Should you sell, fix it up, or sell it as is? It's always up to you. This segment of this episode is brought to you by the home inspection checklist. Make sure you download the checklist before you put your house on the market because it'll help you get through those honey-do lists so you can make your house look like this versus this.


There you go.


Market Insights: Bank Owned Properties

Bank-owned property of the week. It's not my listing three bedrooms, two and a half baths, 2, 200 square feet. It's a list price decrease. I think they decreased it last week. It's been on the market for 40 days and it's in the middle of 880 and the Alameda. This is a great, area to live in.


You are going to get some road traffic. I showed a house here a couple years ago on Hamline and I absolutely refused to let that person buy that house. And the reason is because it was right on the freeway. Here you're going to get some freeway noise. But, this is a bank-owned property. So just take into account that this is what you're buying, You're going to be close to the freeway a little bit. This house looks like it's updated kind. These are virtual stages. I can tell you right now. See virtual staging. They're just trying to give you an idea of what the purpose of each room is.


It might come with a washer and dryer, who knows? And you get a basement. That's nice. If you're interested, let me know. 


Spotlight: Apple and Mountain View Homes

Homes for sale near Apple

This is Apple home of the week, Peacock app, not my listing, four bedroom, four and a half bath built in 2022, almost 2, 800 square feet. It is within walking distance from the Apple campus.


Let's take a quick look at this. It almost looks like it's a rendering, but no, it's not. This is nice. A little Harry Potter room right there.

Mountain View home of the week

Oh, this is nice. This is a mirror 3. 9, 8, 9 million or just call it 4 million. Mountain View home of the week, which you get for 1. 6 million, which is funny because this is about what my house is worth. Now I've remodeled the kitchen, the bathrooms, dual pane windows, put air conditioning in a new window, a new roof, and a 20-year roof, but it has pretty much everything.

New on it, but then you look at this and it's a two bedroom, two bath, 1200, 1300 square feet, built in 1936 and not touched. It looks like a cottage an old-ass kitchen, a gross floor, gross carpet, and some funky wallpaper on the side there. And that's crazy to me that you can still buy. This is a mountain. And you have an opportunity to buy something and make it a little bit better.


Is it something worthwhile? I don't know. The other part is it's. Really close to Central Expressway. So you're going to get some noise. You're going to get off traffic noise and you're going to get Central Expressway noise. So good luck to that seller. It's coming up. 


The Importance of Voting

Register to vote today.

I don't know when the cutoff date is, but make sure you register to vote. I always tell you, I don't care who you vote for, red or blue, purple, green. It's your duty and your right to vote. If you're a citizen, go out and vote. I'm registered, and ready to go. Get out there and vote. 


Real Estate Market Trends

REO of the Week

40 days on the market. We have 191. It's bigger for you. There we go. 90 days on the market, 68. That one number goes up. 40 days went down a little bit. REOs went up just a tad bit. REOs all of California went up just a tad bit. For sale, we have 488. Santa Clara County is 1097, almost 1100. So that number went down. Pending is a 73 and we closed 67, which is not a whole lot, but we're still coming in from the summer Goldrums.

We had 139 close this last week in Santa Clara County total. Yesterday I saw my internet marketing muse, Ryan Lundquist, give me this information I thought it was fun to have. Thank you, Ryan, for. Being my muse and giving me information on how to present data.


Ryan is an appraiser and we're nowhere near competition. So I took his information copied it and found the stuff for Santa Clara County. So I can share it with you, but I also share it with him. So you can share it with his people. And it's nice to do because how else are we going to know what's going on?


Now, these numbers aren't exactly the same. This is actually 55 percent versus 45%. Our numbers are down for sure. This is from 2019 to 2024, year to date. The median price, average price, and months of supply have gone down.


That's what I'm telling you months of supply have gone up elsewhere in our area in the Bay area is dwindled down. There are a lot fewer homes for sale. I show you these numbers because it's important to understand that the supply is still low. We need about a thousand homes for sale in San Jose and about 2000 homes for sale in Santa Clara County to make it a balanced market here.


We're showing you that there's just not enough supply. So prices are going to continue to go up. The average price in Santa Clara County is almost 2. 3 million. Now it's 1. 9. And in June or July, it went up to 2 million and came down. So that number fluctuates every day. And then median days on the market is 10, but the actual average is 21 days, which has come down significantly since 2019.


I'm Vito with Al Batano. Thanks for watching. We'll see you out there.

Vito Scarnecchia Real Estate Broker, Veteran, Dad DRE#: 01407676 We’re Hiring! 408-705-6817 Vito@abitano.com Website: abitano.com https://www.onereal.com/vito-scarnecchia-1 update your home value: https://hmbt.co/bT7qRJ RELOCATION@ABITANO.COM FREE DESKTOP APPRAISAL https://www.propertyrate.com/agent/vitoscarnecchia If you are moving ANYWHERE in the world - Let me know! I know a LOT of AMAZING Agents! Book appointments here: https://calendly.com/abitano/15min Home Buyers Course YT YouTube.com/SanJoseLiving IG https://www.instagram.com/abitanogroup/ FB https://www.facebook.com/vito.scarnecchia/ LI https://www.linkedin.com/in/vito-scarnecchia/ Blog http://blog.abitano.com/ POD https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/oxdH1Hwfcvb Professional Photography by Kim E https://photosbykime.com / Local Real Estate Market and Home Value Report https://hmbt.co/bT7qRJ Financial Intelligence https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0R5pjHIAPguZ5GDEB-fTbGJXKpWK3coK9Khymv_GTWkMnyQ/viewform?usp=send_form https://www.onereal.com/vito-scarnecchia-1 Willow Glen's five most expensive homes https://youtu.be/3A_E2ck0ePg


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