Innis Arden Refresh
The Highlights
In November 2020, our clients bought this home in Shoreline’s Innis Arden neighborhood for $1,425,000.
Happy at Home Contracting made $23,000 of upgrades in 2 months.
In August 2021 (just 9 months after buying the home), our clients sold their home for $1,810,000.
During this same time period, homes in this neighborhood went up by 7% while our listing went up by 22% in the same time period.
The Story
Our real estate team, Get Happy at Home, helped our clients purchase this home in November 2020. This particular family moved from LA, and they were in search of a classic, large home with a yard in a picturesque neighborhood. The husband envisioned having lots of space and providing his children with a similar type of childhood that he had, while the wife was a Downtown NYC gal. So, there was a bit of a lifestyle difference. After a few months of living in the home, they decided that the home just didn’t quite match the lifestyle they had in mind and were ready to sell.
We knew that we could maximize the sale of this home by making strategic updates. As real estate agents, we work with buyers all the time, and we know exactly what they are looking for. We also knew who the buyers were likely to be, and because of this, we were able to identify a few things in the house that would make it much more appealing. We want potential buyers who are touring the home to be nodding their head “yes” the entire time.
A big goal of ours was to make the house feel new. We knew that with this type of home, we were probably going to be competing with new construction homes. We also knew that we probably wouldn’t be able to get quite the same price as new construction when we went to sell it, but we could certainly get 95% of the way there!
And so, the family moved out so we could begin work. It didn’t take us long to make several updates—in fact, it only took us 2 months. If our clients can move out of a home before we do a major refresh, that’s always ideal; it’s really the quickest way to get something done. (Although we have plenty of experience working with people still living in their home!)
Keeping scrolling to read about the specific work we did to this home.
The Work We Did
There were some very obvious updates we could make to ensure this home appealed to buyers. Here are a few of the things we did:
When we got started, the home already had 4 bedrooms. However, one of the rooms was split (making the rooms so small!), and then there was this extra main floor room. In the split room, we took our the wall and made it 1 bedroom. And as for the extra main floor room, we added a closet to make this an official bedroom. FYI: A ton of people want main floor bedrooms, and it is a big selling point. Ultimately, we did not increase the number of bedrooms; we just made the layout much more usable and appealing.
We painted the exterior of the home; previously, it was brown. Brown has not been in style since the early ‘90s. While the home didn’t NEED exterior paint (it wasn’t in bad shape), it was just a poor color choice. We painted the home a dark blue with trim that popped.
The deck had some rotting that needed to be fixed, so we gave it a refresh.
We also did yard work to give this home eye-catching curb appeal.
The Results
In November 2020, our clients bought this home in Shoreline’s Innis Arden neighborhood for $1,425,000. Happy at Home Contracting made $23,000 of upgrades in 2 months. In August 2021 (just 9 months after buying the home), our clients sold their home for $1,810,000. During this same time period, homes in this neighborhood went up by 7% while our listing went up by 22% in the same time period.
More Photos of the Project
