We bought our house a few years ago at a great time - late 2010, in a good area of Houston. The place has hardly seen the recession, and we caught the dip. The person we bought from had to bring 30k to close. Ouch.
But now, the city is booming, and our neighbourhood is white hot. Inventory down to less than a month. Houses are closing within days of list, with bidding wars appearing and sale price well above asking in a few cases.
Our house is one of the original 1930s, as we are slowly surrounded by Mcmansions. [Edit. People are buying 5000sqft lots for 450k and building 3500sqft 700k houses on them, btw. Amazing. This is why I'm thinking of selling now...]
We got the place for less than lot value, and the questions are:
1. Sell? We will be moving in around a year, guaranteed. We could quickly tart it up and put in on the market for high estimate, see what happens. If it sells, take our profit and lease for a year.
2. What renovations to do? I've got our realtor coming by this afternoon to discuss what we could do vs impact on price. If we leave it as is, price would be around 470k. A full remodel, with new kitchen, bathrooms, landscaping, porch, etc would take it to max 650k. I'm thinking somewhere in the middle, maybe countertops, tile floor and doors in the kitchen. Guest bath is bad, so will need to do that anyhow. Sand and repaint door frames really well.
We will be selling either way, so probably the remodeling will be happening anyway to some extent. I don't want the house to be a scrape off.
Advice?
