This time last year we were casually browsing the housing stock, trying to understand the various neighborhoods in our target community for our next home. We figured we’d “get to know the neighborhood” and sell in 2018. Little did we know we would move three months later. Our townhouse ended up selling for a record-breaking price in our little neighborhood and we are so incredibly grateful for it. Now that the spring real estate market appears to be in full swing in the DC area, I thought I’d give you the details on how we prepared our house to go on the market and our experience selling our first house.

Before I get into changes to the house, the most critical thing we did to set ourselves up for success was really simple: we hired a really good Realtor. This is not a sponsored post and our Realtor happens to be a close family friend, but I cannot stress how critical she was to getting so much value out of our house. We learned during the buying process that a good Realtor who knows your neighborhood well and has well-established connections with other Realtors in the area is critical to your success, especially in a competitive market like ours. Our Realtor invested heavily in marketing our property, especially to the first time homebuyers in the surrounding area. We did substantial work on our house before we sold it and our Realtor who made sure that all of our hard work was shown off to as many potential buyers as possible. When the house went to market she helped us weed through the multiple offers we received so that we could get as much value out of the house as possible while also selecting an offer we felt confident would not fall through.

Fun fact: one of the other Realtors on her team ended up selling another house in our little neighborhood for even more a few months after we sold ours (the house was more upgraded than ours). Another fun fact: The house next door to us sold for $43,000 LESS than ours did two weeks before our house officially went to closing. Seriously, same square footage, literally next door. It didn’t show as well but $45,000 less over 1,024 square feet? HIRE A GREAT REALTOR.

Our new house was super poorly marketed and it scared a lot first time homebuyers away as a result, which meant we got a good deal on it.

I should note that buying a house while still owning our first house allowed us to move out of said first house while it was on the market. That was hugely helpful because we could take “stage” it appropriately and keep it clean with ease, so keep that in mind as you look at these real estate photos.

Alright, now to the house. Our kitchen was really dated when we moved in, and we opted for a cosmetic update to keep things simple and expedite the process. To make the cabinets look taller and give more architectural interest to the kitchen, we added crown molding at the top of the soffits and molding where the soffits meet the cabinets. I then painted the cabinets and soffits the same bright white color so the cabinets looked like they went to the ceiling. I used Annie Sloan Pure White Chalk Paint sealed with General Finishes water-based top coat since it’s easy to sand to a smooth finish in between coats. I also replaced the cabinet hardware with new satin nickel hinges and pulls. We replaced the crappy laminate countertops with honed absolute black granite, which is a little more expensive than other granite options but I knew would appeal to buyers who liked the vintage look. We also replaced the sink, faucet, and old appliances, added an over-the range microwave, and replaced an existing cabinet with a dishwasher (which we didn’t have at all while we lived there). Finally, we relaced the existing vinyl tile with a charming mosaic hex. Mosaic tiles are kind of unusual in a kitchen but the kitchen is small and I thought they would complement the vintage vibe we had going nicely.

Here’s what the kitchen looked like when we moved in:

And here’s what it looked like after our updates:

Deciding to do a cosmetic update on the kitchen was a tough call for me. I had originally envisioned totally gutting our kitchen and opening it up to the living/dining area, but we didn’t have the time or money to take that project on. I felt like I was leaving a project unfinished. Would it have been worth it? Maybe. The house that ended up selling for more than ours had a totally remodeled kitchen, but it also sold for $12,000 more than ours and we would’ve been hard-pressed to do all those improvements for $12,000 so I think we made the right call.

In addition to upgrading the kitchen, we added a half bath to the first floor. I had watched the houses for sale in our neighborhood closely for almost two years, and I knew that adding a bathroom to the first floor under the stairs was the thing that affected sale price most. I also observed that adding a full bath vs. half bath didn’t seem to make much if any difference in price, so we opted to go with the half bath. I hired my guys from work to do all the framing, plumbing, electrical, drywall, and tile since we didn’t have time for too many DIY projects. I pulled a building permit for the work so that potential buyers could see it was done properly. I painted the room myself and also laid marble look vinyl tile outside the bathroom in the laundry/utility room to make it look cleaner. We removed the dingy utility sink from the laundry room and stacked and rotated our washer/dryer to make the laundry room feel more spacious.

Here’s the space under the stairs when we moved in:

Here’s that same space after our added bathroom and laundry update:

We made some last minute improvements, but the house also had some upgrades that we made over the time we lived there. The biggest one was our backyard, which we were so thankful to have renovated as a gift from Lowe’s and Summer from Simple Stylings during the 2016 Lowe’s Spring Makeover. At just over 1,000 square feet inside the house, having a backyard fit for entertaining expanded the usable square footage of the house and essentially added a room to the house in good weather. We had removed a tiny deck and installed the slate patio and new fence a few months after we moved in, but the backyard really came to life when Summer worked with us to design a separate gravel/paver patio at the back of the yard and built a cool border of boxwoods to space feel like two separate rooms. Staged with our patio furniture in June, it was a great extra feature that many houses in our neighborhood didn’t quite have.

Here’s what the backyard looked like when we moved in:

Here’s the backyard after all the updates:

Our Realtor provided a stager as part of her services and it was really helpful. Her stager is also a good family friend and was especially valuable in providing structure to our staging. I knew we needed to remove things, but having a list of things to take out and what to do with it all was really helpful while we were dealing with everything else. With three small bedrooms upstairs, we made one the master, one an office, and one a nursery since we knew our target buyer was a young professional or couple who might not have a child yet but would likely envision starting a family in that house. We kept furniture to a minimum and added just enough to show what the room could be. We pulled our king size bed out of the house and used a queen air mattress on bankers boxes and our large piece of artwork as a “headboard” to stage the master bedroom. All the furniture we used was either ours or borrowed from a friend.

Here’s how our master bedroom was staged during the previous listing:

This is how we staged the bedroom using our own furniture:

This is how the smallest bedroom was staged when we bought the house:

I had the stupid idea to paint this room blue because I missed my blue bedroom from my old rental. It was kind of girly and never really served a good purpose for us. As a result, we decided to stage it as a nursery:

This is the larger of the two extra bedrooms, staged when we first saw the house:

Here’s the same room, which we loosely suggested to be an office with a drafting table I already had:

Our upstairs bathroom was already full of vintage charm but needed some updates. The shower had been reglazed prior to our purchase and was peeling. We were able to track down the person who did the work and get it fixed under warranty. We also went ahead and had the tile wainscot reglazed so that it looked nice and clean. To add contrast and provide for storage, we replaced the pedestal sink with a new vanity and also added a new light and mirror.

Here’s what the bathroom looked like when we bought it:

It’s hard to see the updates, but this is how it looked when we sold it:

We really didn’t do much to the living/dining room except replace the weird tiny ceiling fan with a drum shade/pendant kit, and add some shelves. I will say that I think my “staging” with our stuff was a little more on-trend and appealing to millennial buyers than the previous staging.

Here’s how the house was staged when we bought it:

Here’s what it looked like when we sold it (the table for the TV was borrowed because our usual media stand is kind of big):

On the front of the house, we had removed the security-style storm door (because there’s nothing to be afraid of living there!), painted the front door yellow, removed the mail slot and added an engraved push plate to cover it, replaced the door hardware, added a mailbox, replaced the porch light, and painted the iron columns white. We had tackled all those updates shortly after we moved in, and they helped brighten up the front of the house. Finally, we made sure the front yard looked nice and clean, with some new plantings.

Here’s the front of the house when we bought it:

Here’s how the front looked when we sold:

I don’t want to make it seem like this whole process was easy because it was honestly exhausting. While I was grateful that we weren’t living in the house while it was on the market, we had mentally moved on to our new house and I really wanted to be investing my time, energy, and money there. I just wanted to let go of our other house. I spent so many nights at the old house, going straight from work or heading home, packing up the dogs, and working there until midnight trying to get everything done. I’m really glad that I did because we never dreamed our investment would pay off like it did. We honestly would’ve been happy if we had gotten list price or a little over, but we really lucked out and got $25,000 more than we were asking. When all was said and done, the townhouse ended up being a really great investment and we plan to invest the money into improvements at our current house.

There’s part of me that wishes we had held onto our first house longer or opted to rent it instead, but that just wasn’t going to happen at that point in time. The lesson I’ve learned from selling our previous house is not to put off projects or over complicate them if we don’t intend to be in one place for the long haul. Right now we’re toying with the idea of an addition on our house and we can’t decide if it’s really worth it. We’re always watching real estate in the area (mostly for fun) and we went to an open house yesterday that we really wish we were in the position to buy. It checked all of our boxes for what we want from our “forever” home and made me realize that I will never be able to plan for our next move. We are the kind of people who move for the right house/opportunity and you just can’t plan when you might find that house. I realized that we need to prioritize improving this house to a point where we could make good money off it if we put it on the market tomorrow, and then save for the addition should we choose to stay.

This is the house we fell in love with yesterday. I’m a sucker for a Cape Cod.

So what advice would I give someone who thinks they might want to sell in the near future? I’m not an expert in this by any means, but here’s what I wish I had thought about more clearly before we decided to buy a new house on a whim:

• Have an excellent Realtor in your back pocket. We already had this one in the bag but if you don’t have a Realtor you love, talk to friends, pay attention to listings in the area, ask what marketing will go into your property, and get to know who gets top dollar in your neighborhood.
• Know your neighborhood. I had been watching real estate in our neighborhood so closely that I knew what upgrades got the best return on investment. Even in our new neighborhood I try to attend open houses and stalk the real estate listing photos so I get a good sense of what’s happening to the market and where we might stand if we decided to sell tomorrow.
• Keep your upgrades simple and attainable. I have the hardest time with this one because I love a major transformation and my line of work makes my standards higher than the average buyer (For example, I toured a million dollar house today with semi-custom cabinets). But ask yourself: If my dream house came on the market tomorrow and we could swing it, what absolutely must be done to sell my current house? Do those things first, now. Save the more dramatic upgrades for a home you’ll live in for 10+ years, or wait until you’ve got everything else at a good baseline level.
• Renovate on trend. I renovate kitchens and bathrooms every day so I know what’s in high demand in my area. If you don’t feel like you know what’s popular, s simple scroll through Pinterest will inform you. I’m not saying go crazy with trendy stuff, but don’t under estimate the influence of Joanna Gaines. There’s a reason I used white hex tile and vintage looking fixtures in our renovation.

I’d love to hear any additional advice that others have based on selling their own houses! Does my experience ring true to you?