First things first: What to do to get your home ready to sell

'Tis the spring selling season, or, more precisely, the season to get your home ready to sell. Especially if you hope to move on before the kids have to head back to school.
By: Dinah Eng, Special to The Times: LA Times
No matter how grand or modest your fix-up plans, cleaning should be the top priority, the pros say.

"If I only had $100 for prep work, I would spend all of it on cleaning," says Frank Marshall, a Realtor with Re/Max Real Estate Specialists in Long Beach. "Clean the windows, the carpet, shine the sinks, make everything spotless. Nothing is as important as a clean, clutter-free environment."

A cleaning service will charge, on average, about $60 per hour for a two-person crew that can whip your home into shape. An average three-bedroom, two-bath house will take about two to 2 1/2 hours to clean (for a cost of $120 to $150).

When it comes to prepping a place for market, what needs to be done will depend on the home's condition, and the cost will fluctuate accordingly.

Realtors say that for homes of up to 1,800 square feet, owners generally spend $3,000 to $5,000 to prepare a place for sale. For larger homes, the budget goes up, depending on what needs to be done.

So, besides making the house sparkle, what improvements do experts say translate into higher prices and faster sales?

Fix-up budget: $500

Sellers should concentrate on cleaning, landscaping and painting. After that, any money left over can be spent on creating a more polished look, like upgrading plastic patio furniture with a nicer table and chairs.

Curb appeal is a priority.

"I had one client whose lawn was yellowed, and [he] hadn't had an offer in six months," says home stager Ed Marshall, a former Realtor and now owner of Marshall Design Group in Sherman Oaks.

"We hired a gardener to dye the lawn, which takes a couple of hours to do and costs about $150. We also had him plant one tall ficus tree and some shrubs in front of a bare wall, which also cost about $150. The place sold within 10 to 12 days."

Marshall says the dye, when properly applied, looks realistic enough to give buyers an idea of what the lawn could look like if properly maintained.

For enhanced curb appeal, popular plants are calla lilies ($6 for a gallon-size plant); Ranunculus ($2 for a gallon-size plant) and date palms ($11 for a gallon-size plant).

If there are no flowers outside, put geraniums in full bloom in containers. Make sure you buy the right type of geranium, as some prefer sunlight and others shade. And unless the home is small and cottage-like, skip window boxes — which Marshall says are outdated.

Moving inside, he suggests investing $85 to $150 on a contemporary Asian-style area rug, in vogue now.

The home stager dismisses mirrors as a way to enhance the size of a room. They simply add clutter, he says. Instead, paint the walls a light color and use an even lighter shade on the ceiling. A 10-by-10 room requires 2 gallons of paint — at a cost of $23 or less per gallon.

"Arrange your furniture for good pathways," Marshall says. "Don't put your sofa so that it blocks the entryway to the living room. If you have heavy drapes, tie them back to open the space and let light in from the window."

Natural light should sell the house, he says, but if the windows don't let enough in, supplement with table lamps.

To give buyers a sense of comfort and style, Marshall suggests setting the dining table with your best china and putting wine bottles and a dish of nuts or candy on the counter.

Homeowners can cut labor costs by doing some work themselves. James Palomaria, general manager of the Home Depot in Marina del Rey, says the most popular home-prepping materials aren't that expensive. Many people, he says, buy plastic totes (about $5 each) to store knickknacks and clutter.

Other inexpensive fix-ups that make a difference? A basic kitchen faucet in brushed nickel runs about $128, a bathroom faucet, $99.

Fix-up budget: $5,000

For those with $5,000 to spend, rule No. 1 still prevails: Use the money first to clean, landscape and paint.

With what's left, take care of any necessary repairs. Update and replace whatever appliances you can — microwave, refrigerator, dishwasher — and replace or refinish old kitchen cabinets, advises Jimmy Wood, a Realtor with ZipRealty in Los Angeles. Clay Hinrichs, a Realtor with Prudential California Realty in Studio City, says hardwood floors are a hot-ticket item; it costs about $2,500 to sand, re-stain and varnish floors in an 1,800-square-foot home. "People are darkening them into walnut, mahogany and dark cherry tones," he says. "I recommend that people pull up carpets if they've got hardwood underneath."

Recessed lighting is also very popular. It costs about $150 per light, plus the electrician's fee. People install them in hallways and kitchens, and use them in rooms to spotlight artwork.

Homes built in the 1960s and 1970s often have textured "cottage cheese" or "popcorn" ceilings, which were popular at the time. Realtors recommend removing the material, but be sure to test it first for asbestos, a common ingredient until it was banned in 1978. If there's asbestos, you'll have to hire a professional to remove it.

When Donna Heinel of Long Beach put her Belmont Heights condo on the market, she spent about $3,000 to paint, wax the floors and add crown molding.

She was able to save money by doing most of the smaller tasks herself, including installing a new shower head and bathroom sink faucets, pulling out the old medicine cabinet and putting in a new mirror, installing new electrical plates and changing doorknobs and pulls.

Fix-up budget: $10,000 or more

For sellers with this much to spend, the same principles apply: First do basic fixes, then upgrade the look of the place.

Experts suggest painting the whole house if it's needed. Painting the exterior of a one-story, three-bedroom house can run $1,500 to $4,000, depending on the condition of the home and the painter's fees.

Wood, the L.A. Realtor, recommends putting new hardwood flooring in the living areas, flagstone in the kitchen and tile in the bathroom.

Owners with large amounts of discretionary money to spend should evaluate the return on their investment before upgrading simply for the sake of style, says Hinrichs, of Prudential California Realty.

"A lot of people ask, if I put in a new kitchen and remodel the bathroom, would I get more money for my house," he says. "If you remodel, the house will sell quicker, but it's a hassle to deal with construction. You may or may not make the money back, depending on the amenities and condition of the rest of the house, and area comps."

Regardless of how much your budget is, though, sprucing up a home for sale is more imperative in a transitional market, Hinrichs says.

"Our listing inventory's gone up, so you have to make your house look a little bit better than the one next door," he says. "Buyers have more time to look at houses now, which wasn't the case two years ago.