We have a house for sale in Florida and although the inside is completely remodeled the exterior is much the same as it was when we moved out 25 years ago, except for various repairs and a paint job a few years back.
Some of the realtor feedback indicates the exterior is just so-so and could use maybe a different paint scheme or even a complete makeover to make it more appealing to potential buyers.
The garage on the right of the house was closed in and made into a finished “bonus” room but the door bucks are still there and it could be returned to garage status. A couple of buyers turned down the house because it lacked a real garage.
I’d rather not spend more time and money on this property than I already have but I’m looking for some ideas that might help take this off the market sooner than later.
It’s funny how I can come up with design ideas for customers but draw zilch for my own cause.
Any ideas will be appreciated.
Edited 5/8/2007 9:58 am ET by RalphWicklund
Replies
Hi Ralph,
I'm not sure what your time frame is to sell the place, but I'll throw out a couple of suggestions that may or may not stick.
As a forewarning, I'm not trying to be overly harsh, just letting you know what a prospective buyer might be thinking in what's most likely a buyers market.
My first impression was "boring." The roof and exterior look to be in good condition and you have some good established trees, but that's also where it ends.
The lawn needs to be re-hab'd in a big way. Bare patches of dirt aren't appealing and tells me I'll have a lot of work to do myself to fix things up. It generally doesn't look 'tidy' either. Completely subjective I realize, but that's jading the first impression. Means the interior has to work that much harder to sell me on the place.
The shrubs are nice, but there's no color, no flowers, no distinction. Put some variety into the 'greenery' and see what you can come up with. There are currently only 3 planes on your house -- lawn, shrubs, trees. Throw in some flowering plantings, or some big broad leafed plants. Mix it up and add some variety. Consider putting in some planters around the base of the trees. Or rip out the shrubs around those trees in the front and put the planter there.
I like the rock facade on the front of the house -- how about some flowers near there to draw my eye to it? How about a contrasting color for the trim? The mono-chrome burnt orange just isn't working for me. The white on the side of the house is really incongruous with the rest of the place.
The front stoop is buried in this photo, and I don't think the shrubs there are helping. Either way, it contributes to the impression of the house just being a long, simple ranch with no architectural variance. Put in a rail along the stoop and cut the shrubs down so we can see it.
I hope that helps.
Glen
You have to something with the trees, they look like telephone poles, sorry.
The aluminum storm/screen door with scroll work immediately caught my eye as being very dated. The white paint on the side of the house ony serves to highlight the fact that the front facade is, well, a front facade. This goes beyond a quick cosmetic upgrade, but the diagonal siding on the front looks dated to my eyes. A railing along the front porch would add visual appeal (deep-six the hedge). The low hanging fruit is sprucing up the yard. Add some foundation lants. Bring in several cubic yards of dirt for a mounded planting bed, add a border, plantings, flowers, spread some mulch.
In an attempt to keep costs down, I'd concentrate on adding some color.
Right now, everything seems to be in the "brown family".
Grass is dry.....needs to be "greened up". Add some plantings.....couple of flower beds. Maybe at the bases of the trees? Fresh coat of paint on the house. ven something as simple as white. You add enough color to the yard, the clean look of the white house may be enough.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Ralph,
I'll echo some of the previous suggestions:
Paint would go a long way toward making the house more inviting, especially a contrasting trim.
Flower boxes for the front windows.
I'd think about taking out the shrubs that line the walk to the front porch and moving them down to the front, just inside the sidewalk. If you keep them trimmed low enough so that you can see your flower boxes, I think it would act as a nice border for the sidewalk. Plus it might help to screen out the telephone pole base that's leaning, and screen out the brown patches on the front section of the lawn.
The screen door is a definite date-o-matic from long ago. Any new screen door, or no door at all would be an improvement.
Dig some flower beds in the front, plant some color popping plants in there, and mulch well.
I'm not terribly crazy about the trees in the front either. I think the tall, bareness of them (from what I can see of the trunks), clashes with the horizontal structure of the house. The ones in the back provide a nice perspective, though.
Hope that helps. Good luck with the sale.
Prolly more money and or time than you'd wanna spend but a full length front porch w/columns etc would "really" make it a whole lot more interesting...other than that landscaping and paint I'd have to agree with 100%.
"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit."
Abbie Hoffman
http://WWW.CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
paint the wall the same color as bottom add some dark brown shutters
.
“Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”.
Several things could be done--but since you are selling the house, I would think you don't want to spend lots of money. One thing I was thinking about that would be inexpensive would be to paint the porch columns a color to match the stonework on the lower half of the front. Then do something to attract attention to the front--like others said, a new storm door and paint it a contrasting color.
Although I generally dislike non-functioning shutters, BB had a good idea--they would add some color contrast. If you could take a picture of the house and play with it in different colors, you may find something that really works. (I tried to imagine it painted a similar color as the stonework and I don't think that would look all that good, but maybe with some contrasting trim, it would be okay.) Last, if you could move or take out the bushes by the front porch, as another suggested, that would help--they sort of hide the entrance.