20 Mar What to Prioritize In a Bathroom Remodel
It’s often said that two rooms sell a home: the kitchen and the bathroom(s). It’s also widely-accepted that most home buyers are looking for homes that are updated because they don’t want to do the work of updating. Therefore, if the two most important rooms aren’t updated, many potential buyers will start adding up the cost to update the kitchen and the bathrooms, at minimum, and may not offer as much for those homes.
Therefore, if you are considering updating your home to maximize the sales price, as well as compete with similar homes in your neighborhood, there are ways to prioritize these updates, based on your budget. Let’s focus on the bathroom here:
1) Paint. Painting your bathroom, especially if it hasn’t been painted in the past five years, is a simple, inexpensive and quick way to update this area of your home. Be sure to pick a neutral color that will appeal to the widest range of buyers, and that will coordinate with your existing cabinets, counters and flooring. Always pick a paint finish that’s appropriate for bathrooms such as semi-gloss.
2) Hardware and Lighting. If you do one thing to update your bathroom, consider updating your hardware and lighting. Shiny brass fixtures instantly date your home, so switching out any door hardware, faucets and lighting that have this finish, to brushed nickel or shiny chrome is an instant update that’s often cost-effective.
3) Flooring. After paint, hardware and lighting, take a look at the flooring in your bathroom. Buyers prefer tile in a bathroom, so any carpet needs to be removed PRONTO. Eighteen-inch porcelain or ceramic tiles in neutral colors are relatively inexpensive, yet provide a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to updating the look of your bathroom.
4) Countertops. Cultured marble (ie, plastic) countertops instantly date a bathroom in most homes. (There are a few quite modern exceptions in new builds). Granite or quartz countertops in the bathroom are upgrades that will quickly update the look and style of your kitchen. There are various levels (or pricing) of granite, and I would be happy to suggest which level of granite would be appropriate for the price range of your home. With countertop updates comes under mount sinks, which are easily installed and are inexpensive updates when you are already swapping out your countertops.
5) Shower and tub surrounds. Assuming you’ve already implemented the above updates, when it comes to prioritizing updates in the bathroom, the last piece of the puzzle is updating your shower and tub surround if they are dated. Again, cultured marble surrounds are often dated and unattractive options for bathrooms. Replacing these with stone tile surrounds is a desired update by most potential buyers. Along with this update, a frameless glass shower door is an easy update to implement as the old door will have to be removed once the shower surround is taken out.
Updating your bathroom with any of the above suggestions will be sure to help you maximize the final sale price of your home. I look forward to working with you to prioritize the costs of any remodel or update you plan to undertake with an eye toward maximizing the sale price of your home.