Selling Your Home Successfully Part Two

Selling Your Home Successfully in the greater Tulsa, Oklahoma area, isn't hard when you know what you're doing!

In this second part of my series, I want to focus on older homes, specifically in the Owasso, Oklahoma area. However, these tips will largely apply to any older home when it comes to updating and selling. I live in a house that is 17 years old. The homes in my neighborhood are about the same age also. They are typically one story, Ranch style homes. They were well built homes with big rooms, lots of brick and large kitchens. Some of the features typically include rough hewn wood beams in the vaulted living room ceiling, the old gold colored drawer pulls, door hinges and door handles and usually, a honey oak stain finish on the woodwork and doors. Here's a picture of my house as an example of these kinds of homes.

These house can sell well in today's market. However, to get top dollar, updating is essential, especially if you live in the Owasso, Oklahoma area. That's because Owasso is largely a new construction market. Our home values continue to be strong, but we have so much new construction that existing older homes have strong competition from them.

So lets talk about how you can do some of the essential updates that will get you the most bang for your buck.

Here's the original gold handled door pulls in our home (left) and the new hand rubbed oiled bronzed handles we are installing to replace them (right).

You can see from the picture above that we have the older honey oak colored stain in our home. You can also see that the door is NOT an older door anymore. Let me show the changes we are making to all of our doors. The doors on the left are the original doors in our home. The door on the right is the replacement we put on our daughter's room when she moved out and we began updating the house. You can see that we painted the trim also.

Now, compare our door "makeover" to that of a new construction house. I'd say we did pretty good.

Another unique feature to these homes is the rough hewn beams that are usually found in the vaulted living room ceilings. Sometimes people think it is a good idea to paint these. However, we find that leaving them their natural color is typically okay. Here's an example of some painted beams and our natural beams.

It may be hard to see, but these beams are blue. The beams in the pic on the right are their natural color.

One last area we'll look at here is the kitchen. Kitchens and bathrooms are huge selling points in houses. Typically the kitchens in older ranch style homes will have the honey oak colored cabinets with gold handles and laminate countertops. Many people will leave the cabinets the color they already are and replace the handles or knobs with updated ones. Leaving the laminate can be done, but to make your kitchen really pop, you might want to consider something like granite or corian countertops. This can be a significant investment, but the difference is amazing. The kitchen below (on the left) has laminate countertops. Compare it to the newer kitchen in the right picture with granite countertops.

Now, these tips obviously cost money and money can be tight...especially in a recession. So the question then becomes, "Can I sell my older Ranch style house without doing the updating?" The answer to that is yes. However, you're going to need to be very realistic with your asking price. You won't be able to get top dollar in an area where new construction provides strong competition.

That's tip number two in my series, "Selling Your Home Successfully in the greater Tulsa, Oklahoma area." Tune in tomorrow for another great tip!

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