10 Things You Don’t Need to Fix Before You Sell Your Home

As you prepare to list your home, chances are you’ve begun looking at every flaw as something you need to address before the property can sell. That might be true if your home has major problems such as mold or a broken refrigerator, but plenty of imperfections don’t need to be fixed to make a sale. 

“The truth of the matter is, determining whether or not an imperfection is major or minor is not necessarily cut and dry,” says agent Jeremy Kamm of Coldwell Banker Warburg. “To categorize a flaw as major or minor, we first need to establish the overall condition of the home.”

Learn from experts how to distinguish between major problems and minor flaws and which ones you can ignore. 

As you walk through your home or go over it with a real estate agent, keep an eye out for big problems you might need to address. 

Cynthia Wiley of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Paracle advises her clients to have a pre-inspection done to get a clear picture of the major and minor repairs the home might need. 

A pre-inspection report can alert you to problems you might not learn about until a buyer notes them in a counteroffer. 

“You can spend a few hundred dollars now and see the items that need to be addressed, or wait to see the buyer’s inspection report later and spend thousands because they now have a punch list of items in disrepair and demand a reduced price for a lengthy list of itemized repairs,” Wiley says. 

So, what constitutes a major problem? Wiley says anything related to health or safety falls into this category. “The health and safety issues, such as roof repairs, any water leaks, and HVAC cleaning and maintenance, are serious and costly items to replace and definitely worth addressing before listing,” she says. 

Agent