Depending on the house, there are different levels you can take if you’re planning on selling your home, Pringle says.
“Basically, if you get to the point where someone could move in and do stuff later, that is really an important level to get to. You want to capture as many people as possible, and you don’t want to turn those people away since that might be the person who gives you the highest price and maybe the best return.”
Pringle adds, “You can walk through and say, ‘You need to change the dirty carpet or you need to paint walls, but the point is that you need to get to a place where someone can walk in and say, ‘Honey, we can live here and we wouldn’t have to do a bunch to move in.’ That’s key.”
So what will it cost you to get to that point? It could be anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000, according to Pringle. “Our average is about $25,000 to get a house ready, maybe $30,000 now,” Pringle said. “That’s with just basic cosmetic stuff. That’s kind of a baseline.”