Tastefully Done Overbrook Rehab

I've been showing properties off and on to Dawn for a few months and today we saw a true gem in Overbrook. A well renovated row home with gleaming original hardwood floors with exquisite inlay details on both the first and 2nd floors. The open floor plan on the first floor combined a living room with fireplace (non-functional) and crown molding, dining room with crown molding and a kitchen with new laminate floor and updated countertops. The rear yard was terraced and included boxes for plantings as well as a hardscaped patio and lower entrance to the finished basement. The pricetag was a very affordable $125,000 on a tree-lined block.

The home screams "Pride of Ownership" without adding over-the-top, trendy, super-improvements. It's amazing what polyurethane, paint and a little elbow grease can do -- all fairly inexpensive improvements -- to improve a seller's chance of getting an offer in a buyer's market. An article in today's Wall Street Journal, which was adapted from David Crook's "The Wall Street Journal Complete Home Owner's Guidebook" published last year, speaks to the fact that most home improvements will not return their value when it comes time to re-sell a house. Even an upscale kitchen renovation returns only 74 cents on the dollar, and a rehabbed bathroom just 68 cents, according to the article. He points out that some maintenance does have to be done:
"It's not a discretionary expense to fix a broken window, replace a worn-out furnace or sometimes even to add a new bathroom. The buyer of a fixer-upper with a kitchen that hasn't seen a paint brush or a scouring pad since 1967 doesn't have a choice but to renovate."

Today's home in Overbrook really does encapsulate this philosophy: all the rooms are well maintained: bathroom tile work is all in tact, kitchen is clean with older cabinets that have been repainted, etc. Without granite and new appliances, the home still shows heads and shoulders above all else in the market right now.