Episode 12: When to Kitchen Remodel Prior to Selling

Scott Williams: Sweet Home Santa Barbara, where the skies are so blue. Sweet Home Santa Barbara, what’s worked for me, can work for you.

Jonathan Robinson: Welcome friends to Sweet Home Santa Barbara. I’m your co-host Jonathan Robinson and I’m with my friend co-host and real estate expert…

Scott: Scott Williams. Hi Jonathan.

Jonathan: Hi Scott. Well, today we’re going to be talking about something I’m personally interested in, which is kitchen remodels. Because I’m thinking of remodeling my kitchen, and I’m looking forward to asking you a bunch of questions. When people ask you about kitchen remodels. Probably the first question they ask is, was it worth doing it right before you sell a house?

Scott: Well, that’s exactly what they want to know, Jonathan, because kitchen remodels are one of the larger items on both the budget and they are plugged into your house. As soon as you start want to do a kitchen remodel, you think, “Can we move that wall? What if we move this window over? Oh, that doors in the wrong place?” As soon as you go down that road now you really took your house apart.

Jonathan: Yeah. And as a psychotherapist that works with other couples, a large part of my business is people doing kitchen remodels because they start to have a lot of arguments and it starts to create havoc in their relationship. So, it’s not something to take on lightly. Is it cost effective? Do you make more than you put into it?

Scott: Well, the answer to that is usually yes. But the things that you’re looking out for is that it consumes a lot of time. A kitchen remodel isn’t something you’re going to generally do in 30 days. It’s going to be longer and oftentimes, quite a bit longer. And some of the things you will come back to is, are you or are you not going to get your permits, and how big of a remodel are you going to do? And there are a lot of choices to be made. So, I think this is part of the daunting nature for a couple or for home owner who wants to sell their houses. Boy, this is pretty big can of worms we’ve got here.

Jonathan: Yeah. Luckily, there’s everything from tearing down that part of your house to just putting a little bit of paint on. I’m wondering in terms of – what might be the advantage of doing small things, which we can talk about versus a big kitchen remodel?

Scott: Well, the first thing that we do with any kitchen remodel is we want to get some idea, how old is the current kitchen that you have? And there’s a very much a hierarchy, depending upon the price range of the home that you’re in, whether or not you should consider this. If it’s more of a starter home, those kitchens usually get 20 or 25 years before people start thinking about replacing them. If it’s a custom home, it’s less than 20. And if it’s a custom home in the higher end parts of town, like Hope Ranch in Montecito, often times between 12 and certainly, by the time that kitchen is 15 years old, people are going to consider that it needs to be remodeled.

Jonathan: And what might be the price range for kitchen remodel?

Scott: Well, I’ve done, recently, a couple of kitchens that came in. Even below $20,000 in subdivision homes in the Goleta area, but we get to Triple that amount into well-over $115,000 if we’re in a home that’s 3, 4, or $5 million or more in Montecito. These things have to be taken into account.

Jonathan: Well, you sold the house for me many years ago, and what we did was, we spent pretty little, like $3,000 on the kitchen. We painted everything, we glossed everything up, it looks great. Why not do that versus taking down walls and counters and all that?

Scott: Well, let’s back up to why did we decide to paint it? The first thing we look at are the cabinets themselves. If you have wood cabinets, that’s sort of the better category. If your cabinets are primarily press board or plywood, or they just have a tiny little bit of wood in, here and there, and most of the rest of it is some other man-made product, we have to kind of make an evaluation on that. If you actually have nice wood, we generally try not to paint it. We try to stain it. Make it look fresh and new as wood again. But subdivision homes from the ’60s, ’70s, even in the ’80s, much of those cabinets, there’s not really very much wood in them, and so the choice would be to paint them.

Jonathan: That probably doesn’t cost much money, and can look pretty nice, but what does something like that cost?

Scott: Well, that’s often a $4, $5,000 item. It depends, it could be below that. If it’s a really small kitchen, it can be above that. I mean, there’s quite a bit of work for the painters. And when we do that, we often times change the hardware, the hinges, the pulls, try to bring those up to a newer look. Because the old stuff, if it’s 20, 30 years old, it’s not going to come through very nicely.

Jonathan: Right. And what’s the next level up from painting cabinets or making them look nice?

Scott: Well, we have to decide, also, if we’re going to do just parts of the kitchen, should we replace the countertop? And up until about 10 years ago, our main choices were Formica tile, and then a stone of some sort. We did have corona, a few things like that. But starting about 10 years ago, quartz came in very strongly, so strongly that it is pretty much replaced stone as the first choice for most people. I will do stone in a very high-end house in Montecito, where Hope Ranch. But up to the very high-end, and that means $45 million and up, we do quartz.

So, let’s get that hierarchy one more time, the lowest in the eyes of the buyers and also in cost, is Formica. If you have Formica, we very often times wanted to replace that, because it’s too low for most people. Then you have tile and all the varieties of tile. Then you have solid surfaces like quartz, and then you have stone. Although stone and quartz are almost identical in cost, there’s very little difference between them, you can go a little higher with stone but they both occupy the top tier.

Jonathan: How about marble or granite?

Scott: Well, granite, I put it into the stone category. Marble has a pretty checkered reputation in kitchens because it absorbs water, it absorbs stains. Spill a little red wine or a little bit of the sauce from your cooking, tends to absorb into a marble. And you have to keep it sealed, you have to work at it. You have to work in keeping marble nice. Do it if you love it, but I’m not going to do it to remodel a home. I’m not going to try and handcuff a homeowner to a marble. If they’ve already had it once, and decided, “Oh, I don’t like that.”

Jonathan: Right. And how about the appliances, is that something you want to put in new?

Scott: Yes, appliances are – these are again the main choices. Everything is stainless steel; it has been for a good solid 20 years. They were black front before that, and they were white before that. So, if you have a white kitchen or a black kitchen, it’s really very dated, and that should be updated to stainless steel. Pretty much, that’s a choice you should probably make for most kitchens, is to change out the appliances.

Jonathan: And what would give you an indication that you really want to go full tilt and take out counters and walls and all that stuff?

Scott: Well, the first thing we’re going to evaluate, can we stain, or can we paint? If we have a tile or better, as our countertops, and stain or paint will really update the kitchen, we’re going to leave this big problem for the buyer. That’s our first step, and a lot of people choose to do that. That can be done in a matter of a few weeks, and it makes a very big improvement, and a very fresh look to the kitchen.

Jonathan: What else might people know when they are trying to decide if they should remodel their kitchen or not?

Scott: Well, if it’s 40 or 50 years old, we find plenty of these kitchens, you got to start leaning in a lot harder to saying, “Let’s get them replaced.” And your main choices – because you’re going to pull your cabinets out, we tend to want to go back in the same configuration as the kitchen. We’re not going to do the remodel, like move the walls, the windows, and the doors. If we were homeowner, that might be exactly what they want. But for a resale, we generally want to go back to the kitchen in the same position that the kitchen is in now. All the plants are going to be in the same place, sinks in the same place, cabinets are going to be in the same place. Now, we do have some choices in cabinets, you have RTA, ready to assemble. Some of those are beautiful cabinets, they’re a little less expensive. Then you have your semi-custom and your custom. I have not done custom. Well, no, that’s not true. I’ve done one, custom Cabinets for a replacement, but the RTA’s, Ready to Assemble, and the semi-custom are generally where we’re going to spend our money for new sets of cabinets.

Jonathan: And do people have to worry about permits?

Scott: Well, technically speaking, the answer is yes. You have to have a permit. As soon as you pull out a plug and put a new plug-in, you’re working the electrical, then you should do that. However, many people don’t. They’re replacing everything exactly where it is, and they put it all, the new stuff back in. If we’re doing that over the course of 6 or 8 weeks – I have not had a problem with that. But an owner needs to know if somebody turns you in, we’ll have a 2 or 3-month delay, while we get a permit to do the kitchen.

Jonathan: Uh-huh. A lot of considerations there. Any final advice or considerations that we haven’t covered?

Scott: Well, I think we try to start out as soft as we can and proceed into the higher end things. Things like quartz countertops, or maybe adding in all new lighting, old fluorescent light is very common in kitchens. We take that out, we put in LED can lights in the ceilings, very modernizing of a kitchen. Also, underneath cabinet lights. Again, LEDs underneath the cabinet’s, very modernizing of the kitchen. Fresh coat of paint, very modernizing. We can stop right there and for a lot of kitchens that’s exactly where we stopped.

Jonathan: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and saves a lot of money and a lot of heartache, probably.

Scott: That’s true.

Jonathan: Great information as usual, Scott. Really appreciate it. I hope our listeners join us for more of a Sweet Home Santa Barbara.

Scott Williams: Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite app. If you know someone preparing to sell their home, please tell them about the podcast. Visit scottwilliams.com to contact me, and download the 2 free E-booklets, “Is My House Saleable Now?” and “How Not To Buy A Money Pit?” Thank you for listening.