Week Bye Week

We are headed into heavy home renovation season. As the weather turns colder, we are starting to focus on painting and updating the house, trying to make prime use of the forced time indoors.

To that end, we decided we needed a professional opinion on where to focus our energy. Who better to tell us how to best sell our house than the real estate agent who sold the house to us 15 years ago?

I’m no realtor, but I do watch HGTV

We are doing everything that home sellers do when they are about to enter the market. We look at homes on our area that match our house to see what they look like inside (and what they are pricing per square foot). We watch home renovation shows (well, Steph does), to see what is trending now in the way of home finishings, and soon we will start to troll open houses in our area to get an in person look at the types of homes ours will be competing with.

But all of that can’t replace the opinion of someone who spends all day every day walking people through houses and listening to their reactions to cabinet finishes and wall colors. A realtor also understands the neighborhood and can tell us when we’re at the ceiling for our neighborhood. As the largest house in our subdivision, we can hit that ceiling rather quickly if we aren’t careful. At that point, we lose all of the ROI for any renovations, so we need to be smart about it.

Enter the last realtor we will ever use

We met Nita Pridgen 15 years ago when we were moving from Sedalia to Liberty. She won us over immediately with her no-nonsense approach and inclination to say exactly what is on her mind. In a friend and in a realtor, those are valuable traits. She spent several weekends with us looking at houses and she is literally the reason we are in this house. (If you need a realtor in the KC area, Nita’s your person. Trust us on this).

Almost exactly fifteen years ago, we came into town for the weekend, needing to find a house, pretty much immediately. Nita had sent us several houses to look at and we decided which ones we wanted to see. The listing for this house was terrible. It listed as 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms with no mention of the suite in the basement. We took this house off the list of potential properties we sent back to Nita.

But Nita is a pro’s pro. She read between the lines on this house and knew we needed to see it. So the first house of the day, we pull up in front of this house and Gene said, “We took this off the list.” Nita said, “Just go take a look.” We hadn’t been in the house more than 5 minutes before we knew it was the house for us. Every kid would have their own bedroom and Gene’s mom would have her own apartment in the basement. The house was literally made for our family. We finished her list of houses that day and then asked to see this one again. We made the offer that day and the rest is history.

Nita has, over the years, become more or a friend than a realtor. She did help our oldest daughter buy her first house during the pandemic, but beyond that our relationship has been social. She and her husband are live music lovers and often go to see Gene’s band play.

We knew that Nita would be brutally honest with us about what needs to be done in our house before we sell it. Nita knows houses and she knows what sells. She’s been doing this for literally decades. We needed someone who wouldn’t sugar coat our house. It is an amazing house full of potential for the right buyer (large family or a need for 4 garages, maybe both?). But it is over 20 years old. Right across the street, where cows grazed when we moved in, there is a brand-new street full of brand-new houses, some of which are on the market now and some may be on the market next summer when we sell. We knew our competition. We needed Nita to tell us how to compete.

Mostly what we knew…partly what we didn’t

If you walk through your house with a critical eye right now, you’ll see all of those tiny details that you know you need to get to…someday. Mostly finished projects, a few repairs here and there, some scuffed paint, etc. We have all of that and Nita caught every bit.

She had great suggestions on the kitchen and master bath – our two biggest (and most expensive) renovations, coming this spring. Some things we could do that we weren’t planning on, as well as eliminating some things that were on our list that were unnecessary. It’s all about ROI – we’re not doing any of this for our own enjoyment.

She also caught things we didn’t expect. After living in this house for fifteen years, we just looked past some things and took them as “background.” She saw everything with fresh eyes and pointed out some updates that are super easy, but we would never have gotten to on our own.

One thing that came out of our conversation that literally shocked us, was Nita’s (strong) suggestion that we rip up the tile in the basement. Wait, what? Apparently, tile is dated. Everything is LVP these days. If we are going to compete with new construction a literal stone’s throw from our front porch, we need to remove everything dated. So, coming next summer – a new project for the list! Anyone know a cheap flooring guy? I’m not sure we’ll survive another floor install project.