IF you’re selling your apartment, you could make $25,000 more by cleaning out your cat’s litter box.Okay, maybe not quite that much – but small, inexpensive improvements, some free ones too, made before you put your home on the market can reap big rewards at sale time.Consider the savvy flipmeister in Park Slope, Brooklyn, who quickly turned a hefty profit on a duplex by adding a strategic stripe of paint on the wall and installing a new set of kitchen knobs.
The apartment “had a fireplace and he painted a stripe on the wall where the fireplace and mantle were,” says Jodie Greenwald, the sales agent who represented him for Aguayo & Huebener Realty.
“My next suggestion was, if you have a lousy kitchen and you’re not going to renovate it, change all the handles and put on something newer or funkier. He also got the place cleaned up and brought in furniture and arranged it in a funky minimalist fashion – and got $50,000 more than he paid for it.”
Some homeowners lose out on making a few extra bucks because they don’t want to put money into an apartment they plan to leave. But like kitchen and bathroom renovations, certain improvements more than pay for themselves. Spending $500 on a new gas range or new cabinet doors can modernize a so-so kitchen. Crummy linoleum floors can get a spiffy facelift for even less, depending upon the size of the room.
Buy a pleasing halogen lamp. Fix what’s broken. Repair cracked mirrors, water stains, scraped up floors, holes in the walls or drippy faucets.
Clean windows, reglaze the tub or regrout tiles, advises Reba Miller of R.P. Miller & Assoc. Inc., a real estate sales and renovation company. “For that, you’ll get back $5,000 to $10,000 in the sale,” she says.
Of course, each home is different. But small fixes can add 20 percent to a property’s sale price, says Marilyn Harra Kaye, president of Prudential MLBKaye International, a residential real estate sales company.
The Post asked some New York brokers for other improvements, costing $1,000 or less, that pay back handsomely on the other side. Here’s what they had to say:
* GARBAGE BAGS: $2.99
When in doubt, toss it out. And that goes for excess furniture too. There’s nothing like neat, minimalist decor to make an apartment seem bigger. Create open space in the middle of the room. Throw away old newspapers and magazines, file all those loose documents, weed through the knickknacks. Kitchen counters, bureaus and dining room tables should be as clear as possible.
“The most important thing is to give an appearance that’s open and uncluttered,” says Susan Breen, a Brooklyn real estate agent who adds, “The place can look lived in but it shouldn’t look like it needs to be cleaned.”
* HIRE A CLEANING PERSON: $100
Make the place as neat as a nice hotel room. No kitchen grease, bathroom grunge or laundry piles allowed. Even the closets should look orderly. Mildew and mold are your enemies. Leave no evidence of bodily functions. “Hair in the sink is gross. Toothpaste in the sink is gross,” gripes Kaye. “I once had an exclusive with a bachelor and I would get there an hour early to make the bed, empty the wastebasket, wash the toothpaste out of the sink – and I’m a top broker in the city.” If you can afford to have a housekeeper every day (between $10 and $20 per hour in Manhattan), do it. If you have carpets, have them professionally cleaned. Lots of city places run $39.99 specials. Save those Val-Pak coupons.
* NEW TOWELS AND SHOWER CURTAIN: $50 AND UP
They make an old bathroom look crisp and new.
* CARVE OUT A COMPUTER NOOK: UNDER $1,000
“It’s very today and it’s very sexy,” says Kaye. “It’s inexpensive to do but it’s very effective.”
Remove doors from a closet and pop in a computer, table, chair, fan and T1 or DSL line. DSL service makes even a so-so home seem state-of-the-art – and it’s not as expensive as it sounds. Verizon currently has a deal for $39.95 per month in certain parts of the city.
* PLANTS: $10 AND UP
Plants and flowers near the windows can make even a dungeon look light and bright.
“I sometimes bring pineapples to open houses,” says realtor Greenwald. “When you see pineapples sitting around, you think of vacation and it makes you feel good. Plus when they’ve been sitting out for a few days they start to smell nice. Of course, don’t let them rot.”
* BAKE COOKIES BEFORE THE OPEN HOUSE: $5
Why? They smell good. “Especially chocolate chip cookies,” says Kaye. “Everybody loves the chocolate and the hormones start going. Smells are tied into food and memories. Food and a home go together. People will not buy a home they’re not emotionally involved in. That’s why apartments with no furniture get less money, because there’s no emotional reaction.”
Bad odors will cost you. Literally. If you have a cat, freshen the box three times a day. “I can’t stress how much cat litter can affect the sale of an apartment,” says Greenwald. “You have to neutralize animal smells. And if you can make it a nice smell – not an air-freshener smell – it’s much better.”
