Before the photographs
What to fix before you list, and what to leave alone.
Sellers routinely spend money on the wrong things and skip the one item that decides whether the house can be financed at all. This is the order it should go in.
The only item that is not optional
Anything that stops a lender or an insurer
Every other decision on this page is a judgment about return. This one is a gate. If a buyer cannot get a loan or cannot bind an insurance policy on your house, your buyer pool collapses to cash, and cash pays less. That is the whole mechanism.
- The roof, if it is at or past the end of its insurable life. In this market that is the single most common gate.
- Active water intrusion, anywhere. A wet ceiling stops an appraisal.
- Non-functioning heating or cooling. An appraiser will call it out.
- Exposed or unsafe wiring, and older panel types insurers no longer accept.
- Active termite infestation. Treatment is priceable and routine; leaving it is not.
- Missing handrails, rotten steps, and anything an appraiser will write up as a safety item.
If you cannot fund these, that is not a failure and it is not the end of the road. It is the specific situation where selling as-is often nets more than listing does, and it is worth running the numbers rather than guessing.
Cheap and effective
What reliably pays for itself
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Clearing out
Removing roughly a third of the furniture and nearly all of the personal items. Costs a weekend and a storage unit, and it does more for the photographs than anything else on this list.
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A deep clean
Buyers read clean as maintained. Windows in particular change how a room photographs, and nobody notices them until they are done. Pay somebody for one day rather than spreading it over three.
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Paint, in one neutral color
The highest return of any real expenditure, as long as it is one color throughout rather than a different decision per room. Warm white reads better than grey in Acadiana light.
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Light bulbs, all matching
Same color temperature in every fixture, every one working. It is a trivial job, and mismatched bulbs make good photographs impossible no matter who takes them.
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The front of the house
Edged, mulched, the door painted, the house numbers legible. This is the photograph that decides whether anybody clicks.
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The small broken things
The door that sticks, the running toilet, the loose handrail, the cabinet that will not shut. Individually trivial, collectively they read as a neglected house.
Money you will not get back
What to leave alone
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A kitchen remodel
Rarely returns its cost at sale, and you will pick finishes the buyer would not have. A clean, functional dated kitchen priced correctly beats a half-finished new one.
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Adding a bathroom
Large expense, long timeline, and the value it adds is usually less than the cost of adding it. If it was worth doing you would have done it while you lived there.
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A pool, or removing one
Both are expensive and both are a matter of taste, and taste is the one thing you cannot price into a listing. Price the house with the pool it has, or without the one it does not.
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Premium finishes
Comparable sales set the ceiling on your street, and no finish raises that ceiling. Stone counters do not lift the number, they just cost you money underneath it.
A workable order
Four weeks, if you have four weeks
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Week one: decide what the gates are
Walk it with somebody who knows what an appraiser and an insurer will object to, and get estimates on those items only. Everything else waits until you know that number.
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Week two: clear out
Furniture, personal items, the garage, the shed. Rent the storage unit for two months and do it once.
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Week three: paint and repair
One neutral color, and the list of small broken things in a single pass. Book the deep clean for the end of the week.
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Week four: the outside, then photographs
Yard, front door, house numbers. Photographs after everything else is finished, never before, and never on a grey afternoon if it can be helped.
Before you spend anything
Get the list for your house, not a generic one
A walk-through is free and takes half an hour, and it usually ends with a shorter list than the one you were expecting.
Prep questions
What pays, and what does not
What is the single most important thing to fix?
Anything that stops a lender or an insurer. Roof age first. Those items decide how many buyers can make an offer at all, and everything else is a judgement about return. If a house cannot be financed or insured, the buyer pool collapses to cash and the price follows it down.
Should I renovate the kitchen before listing?
Almost never. A full kitchen remodel rarely returns its cost at sale, and you will choose finishes the buyer would not have. A clean, functional, dated kitchen priced correctly beats a half-finished new one and beats a new one that pushed the house above what the street supports.
How much does prep usually cost?
Less than sellers expect, if it is limited to the list that pays. Clearing out, one neutral paint colour, matched light bulbs, the small broken things and the front of the house are most of the return. The expensive items are the gates, and those are a financing decision rather than a decorating one.
How long should I allow?
Four weeks is comfortable if you have it: one week to decide what the gates are and get estimates, one to clear out, one to paint and repair, one for the outside and then the photographs. Photographs last, always, and never on a grey afternoon if it can be helped.
What if I cannot fund the repairs at all?
Then you are in the specific case where an as-is listing is usually the worst of three options, because you pay commission, concessions and months of holding costs to reach the same small pool of buyers a direct sale would have reached anyway. Run the arithmetic before signing a six-month listing agreement.
Check it yourself
Sources and offices you can use directly
Everything on this page is checkable against a public source. These are the ones behind it.
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Verify a license
Louisiana licenses are public record. Search a license number before you sign anything with any agent, including this one.
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Insurance complaints
Company lookups, the consumer complaint process, and the state programs that help pay for a stronger roof.
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FORTIFIED roofs
The building standard behind Louisiana’s roof grants and insurer premium credits, published by the institute that wrote it.
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FEMA flood maps
The current flood zone for a specific address, from the source. Zones vary lot by lot and the maps are revised.
Related
Where to go next
The pages most people read after this one.
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Listing with a REALTOR®
Pricing, prep, marketing and what a traditional sale nets.
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Free valuation
A comparative market analysis from a person, against an automated estimate.
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Listing versus cash
The full arithmetic on one house, three ways, with the assumptions written down.
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Compare your options
Four paths for a house that has to move quickly, and what each costs in money and in weeks.
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Selling a rental
Occupied or empty, and what the recorded lease does to the sale.