To Sell a House

We blogged in January on how the Google Maps new street view photo showed off to full effect the front perspective of our old house in Arlington, Virginia just after it had been listed and contracted for sale.  We had the after picture but no before for contrast.  Well, I was recently rooting around the web and sure enough the Bing Maps application had a street view showing our Arlington house prior to the sale spruce up.  The before picture presents like this.

Bing Maps street view of our old Arlington House

Notice the side and the front borders are overgrown with unruly bushes.  A spindly tree blocks the side view to the rear.  Porch floor paint is dull and pealed, and the grass splotchy and barren.  The garage door is yucky white.  An ancient aerial sprouts from the chimney and the trim paint is faded and pealing.  The dreary faded cushions on the porch glider are barely visible.  The old (1939 original) casement windows have rusted frames and are dark and dreary.  Then we got our mitts on it.

Google Maps street view of our old Arlington House

With a little bit (well a lot) of elbow grease the bushes are trimmed and uniform, framed by freshly mulched beds.  The spindly tree off to the left was removed offering a clear view to the sunny back yard.  The porch is brightly painted, and the lawn restored lush and green.  A fresh coat of paint on the garage door sets it off and integrates with the background and color scheme of the rest of the house.  The aerial is removed and the trim paint is bright and white again.  Shiny new windows with bright borders replace the rusted hulks.  The front porch is spruced up with fresh glider cushions and bright pillows, hanging flower baskets and flower boxes to the fore, with a classy cast iron and candle arrangement on the back wall. 

We can also get a flavor of what happened inside the house because I was lucky enough to find a long overlooked in progress picture of the basement rehab in the flash memory of our digital camera.

Basement rehab in progress

By the time this in progress picture above was taken I had done almost all of the painting and repaired most of the ceiling holes but was just beginning to re-tile the basement floor and install new base board to cover the old dark and dingy asbestos tiles.  As you can see the before picture is a mess.  The after picture is a listing agent's dream.

Basement real estate listing photo

In total, over 8 months, we probably put $35K into the house, plus a ton of sweat equity, with the biggest monetary investment being installation of central air conditioning (we had two wall units and three window units).   It's anyone's guess but I would bet that we did somewhere between $75K and $100K better on the sales price for investing the time, money and effort.  It pays.