underwater and remodeling

My husband and I know that we want to sell our house. We had a couple of real estate agents in recently and both told us that we'll never get what we owe on the mortgage. We've decided to stay in the house for another year and then revisit the selling idea. In the meantime, we'd like to prepare it for sale.
What kinds of things would you do to make a home attractive to a buyer, but without breaking the bank? For example, we have horrible laminate cabinets in the kitchen and we've thought about replacing them with in-stock cabinets from Lowe's. That would still set us back a couple thousand dollars (probably). Is it worth it? What else would you do or not do?
TY!

Re: underwater and remodeling

as a realtor- I would need to know how much underwater you are?

where is the house?

how long have you lived there?- the first 5 years of a mortgage are basically interest- so waiting another year might not even make much of a difference

kitchens and bathrooms are important- but I would hate to see you put more money into the house and lose more

did any of the realtors offer advice?

Re: underwater and remodeling

Thanks for your response...

We live in Bay Shore and we bought in 2006 (THE WORST TIME!!! UGH)

We owe about $295,000 and the realtors told us we'd be lucky if we got $289,000, but more likely we'd get less than that.
We just don't have the cash to make up the difference, so we're thinking that the best thing is to suck it up and pretty much "rent" this house for another year and get the mortgage down.

No advice was offered.

I'm open to any advice or suggestions, though!

Re: underwater and remodeling

Let me start by saying that I am not a professional at all, but these are my thoughts. Have you looked at the comps in your area to see if the houses with remodeled kitchens are selling for more? You can probably do Ikea cabinets for under $3-4k, possibly cheaper if the space is not large. That and a new backsplash could all come in under 5k if you do the work yourself. You just want to make sure the investment will come back to you.

Re: underwater and remodeling

if you don't mind I would like to offer my real professional opinion

I sell alot in the area- I just closed on a house in bay shore less then 2 weeks ago

I don't know who you spoke to- but FM me your address and let me do my own research

I am not like most real estate agents and neither is my marketing- you can look me up on here- Beth Lowe Exit Realty

or zillow

Zillow reviews

Message edited 1/7/2013 2:48:36 PM.

Re: underwater and remodeling

Same boat here except we aren't underwater too much. DH bought the house in 2004 with about 45% downpayment but because of Sandy, the house dropped about $ 41K in value in just a month.

We were planning to sell the house anyway but now with the possibility of another Sandy-like storm coming summer/fall 2013 - we are in a rush to get out now. We will face around a $ 76K loss (the difference between the purchase price and what the appraised value now is).

I also wanted to do some remodeling because DH didn't do much remodeling or updating once he moved in. I have told him since we sustained damage from Sandy, that we are going to make the basement nicer. We already have extra electrical sockets and are in the process of getting contractors to quote us for sheetrock installation. We already bought new appliances (washer/dryer).

Other things I plan to do - sand down the wood floors, replace the area rugs, and deep clean the windows and ceiling fans. There are windows in the bedroom we MAY consider replacing (double insulated window panes). We also plan to paint one of the bedrooms, and paint the exterior as well. By doing this ourselves, we are saving money - and it will be a good spring project.

Once all these mini "updates" are done - I may consider getting a professional to walk into the house and give us tips on how to best "stage" the house for maximum selling price (companies like this one: http://classichomestaging.com/). but I have to call for quotes to see if its really worth it.

Here is a good article addressing bathrooms:
http://kittyschwartz.com/selling-your-house-home-staging-tips-for-updating-a-bathroom/

Message edited 1/7/2013 3:12:20 PM.