Is It Worth It To Sell Your House As-Is?

A Well-Rounded Approach

The truth about selling a home as-is boils down to your particular situation. In short, for most people, you’re going to be leaving thousands of dollars—if not tens of thousands of dollars—on the table if you want to sell as-is. However, sometimes that may not really mean anything.

For example, say you’re eighty-five, and you’re looking to live in an RV till the end. Should you have an estate worth $400k as-is, then at $30k a year, you’ve got enough money for thirteen years and four months of life. You could travel the country, eat out every night, and repair your vehicle with regularity for that sum. Maybe the extra $50k doesn’t matter.

Still, if you’re eighty-five and spry, that extra $50k could be an extra two years on the road, rounding you off at 100 years. Now that being said, certainly, most reading this won’t be in their twilight years. Many will be considering a new property, or a move. In that case, whether to sell the house as-is could also represent a variable “quantity”.

If you’re in a neighborhood that’s in decline, spending $10k in refurbishment may only bring $11k in actual value, and increase the time it takes to sell by a few months or years owing to a lack of demand. Such a situation wouldn’t be worth the refurbishment, as-is selling would be better. So you see, it’s a complicated question, and deserves closer examination.

The Value Of Landscaping

Landscaping can add as much as a few grand, or as much as $40k, to your property. The bigger the property, and the more carefully you landscape, the greater the overall value will be in the end. You don’t necessarily have to grow a garden to do this, either.

You could rip up the grass in a two-hundred square-foot backyard, plant a tree, install wood-chips, and put a stone path through them to a bench underneath the tree. Do that in the spring, and be careful to water the tree regularly. You may have to rake the wood chips every now and again, but it’s a pretty hands-free enhancement that produces more value expense.

Simple, “Slam-Dunk” Property Upgrades

If you’ve got an unfinished basement or an unused attic—or both—get those things properly upgraded. The basement can be a guest-room, it can be a sublet apartment, it can be a gaming room, poker room, man-cave, theater, bar, or whatever you’d like. It can also be storage, but if you’re selling, you’ll be cleaning it out anyway—why not upgrade?

Something else that can bring thousands of dollars in profit after initial expenditure is the addition of “green” or “off-grid” energy options, like solar, wind, or water energy. If you’re ideally situated in an area where you can apply the trifecta, for $15k you can increase property value as much as $60k.

A 3.1 kWh solar energy array will bring between $10k and $20k in value, depending on where you are, and cost you $5k to install if you go the DIY route—up to $18k if you have contractors do the installation, or go for an array larger than 3.1 kWh. It’s about the same for wind energy and water energy.

Consultation Through Real Estate Agents And Contractors

Consultation is a very wise option to determine your property’s affinity for upgrade, refurbishment, or as-is sale. You can go to sites like ISoldMyHouse.com to help you get your house ready to sell, regardless of whether or not you’re refurbishing.

That said, upgrading the interior premises, landscaping, and adding clean sources of energy can do much to enhance value, paying for their expense and then some in terms of added property value. If you’re going to sell your property as-is, you will very likely lose money. If that doesn’t bother you, don’t worry about it. If it does, refurbish the premises.