Should You Renovate Before Selling a Home With No Mortgage? A Redwood Shores Case Study
The Move Wasn't About the Money
Our clients were very happy in their townhome in Redwood Shores but they were ready for a change. Their goal was simple: sell the townhome and buy a single family home. After a few years in the unit, they wanted more space, and their townhome, even though it was pretty large and on the water, wasn't going to stretch to meet that.
What is pretty interesting in my opinion is that despite all of the wealth creation we’ve seen in the last few years around here and large appreciation gains in the single family home market, this has not transitioned down to the condo and townhome markets, unfortunately, which have basically remained flat on value, or a tad up.
This matters if you're planning a similar move. If you're counting on your townhome's value to have grown a lot since you bought it, obviously you’d check recent comparable sales before assuming that math works in your favor. In this case it didn't move the needle the way my clients had hoped when they originally purchased.
Should You Refresh Your Home Before Selling?
This is the direct answer: yes, it's often still worth it. If the market isn't going to hand you appreciation, targeted improvements are the one lever you still control before listing. This is really important nowadays, as the buyers who will pay a premium for your home typically want it to be as turnkey and move-in ready as possible. Even though it's not technically too difficult to replace flooring, upgrade lighting, paint, et cetera, many buyers have so much going on that managing this process is something they would rather pay for in the purchase price than take on independently post-closing. Because of this, we've chosen to invest a lot of time to support our sellers in this part of the preparation process and sale.
So, the same logic was applied here. Instead of listing the townhome as is and hoping the market would do more work than it did, our clients invested in the property first. By the time everything was done, our clients invested a little shy of $100,000 to get the home ready for market.
What Went Into Preparing the Townhome for Sale
Once the decision was made, the work came together the way it does for many of our listings: a long list of individually unremarkable items that add up to a home a buyer can walk into and picture themselves living in. Almost all of it was interior. The figures below are the actual amounts, as documented in the seller's disclosure package.
Kitchen and Bathrooms — $26,000
Kitchen cabinets, countertop, and full backsplash replaced rather than repainted, along with the vanity — $17,000. A second bid for full replacement came in close enough to a repaint to make replacement the better long-term call.
Bathroom upgrades — $9,000. New vanity, mirrors and lighting fixtures, TOTO toilets, Panasonic extra-quiet exhaust fans, and new faucets, shower fixtures and hardware throughout.
Floors, Walls and Paint ~ $40,000
New oak flooring throughout, replacing the existing carpet — $30,000. This covered the entire property including the garage stairs, with a matching oak floor register and new baseboards throughout.
Interior paint, including the garage — $7,500
Non-structural restoration — $2,300. Kitchen doorway frame repair, plus removing a wall-mounted shelf and refinishing the wall in the guest bedroom.
Systems, Safety and Finish Details ~ $7,000
Garage floor epoxy — $4,400
Electrical and safety — $2,000. Five new smoke alarms, a Ring doorbell, and new outlets and switches throughout.
Miscellaneous — $700. Upgraded door handles and replaced air registers.
Interior work totaled $82,300.
Final Presentation — $12,270
Professional staging ahead of photography and showings
House cleaning and window cleaning to finish the prep before listing
All in, our clients invested $94,570 preparing the townhome for the market.
Should I Paint or Replace Kitchen Cabinets Before Selling?
A common question I am often asked by clients. Here’s my advice: if your cabinets are structurally fine, painting is usually the cheaper, faster option. But it's still worth getting a second bid for full replacement before assuming painting wins by default. There are low cost, high quality cabinet vendors out there, and depending on the shop, a full replacement can land close enough to a repaint that it becomes the better choice, especially if you're replacing countertops at the same time anyway.
Townhome or Single Family Home: What Are You Optimizing For?
This is the tradeoff at the center of the decision to move, and it's the same one a lot of Peninsula buyers eventually face. A townhome usually means lower exterior maintenance, HOA covered upkeep on shared structures, and often a lower price point for a comparable location. A single family home usually means more square footage, a private yard, and full control over the property, along with the maintenance that comes with it.
Neither is the wrong answer. It depends on what stage of life you're in and what you're optimizing for, convenience and lock and leave simplicity, or space and long term flexibility. For my clients, after a few years in the townhome, the second one won out.
I'd Love to Help You Think Through the Same Decision
Whether you're weighing a move up from a townhome to a single family home, or trying to figure out if now's the right time to invest in your home before listing it, I'd love to help you look at what actually makes sense for your specific property. No mortgage or not, the right prep decisions can still make a real difference in how your home shows and how buyers respond to it.
This article is copyrighted by Raziel Ungar and may not be reproduced or copied without express written permission.
