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The Lifespan and Cost of Kitchen Appliances When Home Selling
Considering the cost of kitchen appliances, when you are selling a home, sometimes it is less expensive to buy new. Why would you buy new appliances to sell a home? For starters, they might be the wrong color. Yes, color matters. For example, white is not a popular color anymore. That doesn’t mean if your entire kitchen is white that you need to remodel because you do not. Yet, older kitchens with oak cabinets and white appliances and white ceramic counters might get passed over by today’s homebuyers or you may need to lower the price of the home to compensate.
Free-standing ranges tend to take a beating over the years. Often the grates and burners become impossible to clean if regular maintenance is not practiced. Those pieces of a gas range, for example, are very expensive to replace. In many situations, you will find it is far cheaper to buy a brand new gas range than to replace parts.
Now, the cost of kitchen appliances can vary depending on whether you are buying new appliances to use for several years before selling or if you plan on selling immediately. Most homeowners will spend more to get features they desire and value if they plan on personally using the appliances. But when you’re selling, buyers don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the features. They will notice the color, though, and whether it is new.
The cost of kitchen appliances also varies with the color. White is cheapest. For a reason. Nobody really likes white except absentee landladies and landlords. Stainless steel is preferred. Close to first position of stainless steel is black or black on stainless steel.
My husband asked why I was looking at gas ranges one morning, after he rolled out of bed. He could see my monitor from the hallway since it is a 40-inch television screen, heh, heh. Doing research for a seller. I help in any way I can. Just for your own edification, below is the lifespan of kitchen appliances as noted by Consumer Reports:
Lifespan of Kitchen Appliances
- A gas range: 15 years (13 for electric)
- A dishwasher: 9 years
- A microwave: 9 years
- A refrigerator: 13 years
One thing I noticed when we shopped for a new refrigerator a few months back is they are making free-standing refrigerators MUCH wider and MUCH taller. When remodeling, it is probably a good idea to allow for expansion of size in a space for a refrigerator. If you need a 33-inch wide refrigerator, like we did, the selections are greatly reduced.
Since one of my clients is considering replacing the dishwasher, stove and microwave in their home before selling, I decided to look at a few top vendor websites to determine how much it would cost. The cost of the kitchen appliances were fairly close, and I sent links to my sellers. They will get the money back upon resale.
I include the cost of the low-end kitchen appliances here for you, but bear in mind these are low-cost for brand new. They might not be what you would want for your own home. But if you’re selling, it’s only your home until a buyer makes an offer, you accept and it closes.
Cost of Kitchen Appliances
FILCO Superstores cost of kitchen appliances: $891.89
- Amana black gas range: $426
- Whirlpool black dishwasher: $297
- Whirlpool 1.7 over-the-range black microwave: $168.99
RCWiley cost of kitchen appliances: $909.68
- Frigidaire black gas range: $449.99
- Frigidaire black dishwasher: $279.99
- Samsung 1.6 over-the-range black microwave: $179.99
Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores cost of kitchen appliances: $817.99
- Whirlpool black gas range: $419.00
- Frigidaire black dishwasher: $259.00
- Unknown manufacturer 1.6 over-the-range black microwave (uninstalled) $139.99
Prices subject to change. may not include installation or delivery fees.
How Important is the Condition of a Home When Selling?
Wonder if these sellers know they are painting a wall two different colors?
Asking an experienced Sacramento Realtor about the condition of a home when selling is a smart move. I see so many sellers jump right in on their own, without seeking advice, and making repairs that do not need to be made, which means they are throwing money out the window. Oh, they might backtrack a little and mumble that’s what they wanted to do for the buyers so it doesn’t matter, but it does matter if they could have spent the money on say, oh, maybe a vacation in Hawaii, and they don’t have a money tree growing in their back yard like I do in my yard. You should see it. Incredible. Pops out 100 bills like clockwork.
Facetiousness aside, the first thing that many people wonder about is the condition of a home when selling. Some sellers will say, oh, let’s just sell it AS IS. And you know what? That’s OK. I am not about to impose my sentiment about turnkey homes because it doesn’t apply. On top of that, not everybody is a flipper, even if they spend hours and hours absorbing every episode of that variety on HGTV, that 24-hour eye candy. The fact is flipping takes experience, being in touch with what buyers want and not what you want. Buying materials at wholesale. Finding cheap labor. And then you can still chop down that money tree.
Sellers in Rancho Cordova had asked my thoughts about fixing up their home. I suggested the readily apparent issues that could be easily rectified and produce maximum benefit. They had little precious time, a family of tiny tots, so my suggestions to them were different than what I suggested for a seller in Davis when asked about the condition of a home when selling. The seller in Davis has more time, more resources, but still, we’re not flipping the house.
Of course, having been involved in buying and flipping homes for years and doing all of the work myself, with my own two little hands, it gives me a different perspective. I know how long it takes to perform certain jobs, for example. That information is invaluable to a seller who is doing some of the work herself. I had asked my sellers in Rancho Cordova to paint over a kitchen window, touch-up a ceiling by the entry, paint bedroom doors, wash the front door, install a new closet door in the hallway and remove a living room rug. The house was transformed! We received about a dozen offers.
Even the sellers were amazed. The downside is sometimes they decide not to sell when they sell how beautiful their home can appear. I’ve had that happen before. Providing advice about fixing up the condition of a home when selling is part of my full-service that I provide to my own sellers. I’ve got more than 40 years of experience, and I’m generally spot on. But don’t expect to receive this advice for free. Sellers need to be a client of Elizabeth Weintraub to receive this type of assistance.
Each plan is always tailor-made for my sellers and for the market conditions at hand. We’re in a market now in which the condition of a home when selling is not as important as it was a couple of years ago. But there are still little things that provide a big punch. This is a hot seller’s market. If you want to capitalize, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
The Dissing of Calling a Fair Oaks Realtor the Devil You Know
It is not unusual for me to receive phone calls from disgruntled sellers in Sacramento who want to dump their agent. I know you might be thinking to yourself: how lucky is this Sacramento REALTOR — because she doesn’t have to search for business; listings just fall into her lap. The truth is I don’t particularly enjoy listening to a seller rant and rave about all the horrible things she believes her soon-to-be former agent has done. On top of which, I don’t add fuel to the fire; I don’t see any reason to disparage another human being, especially not for financial gain.
I try to get the callers to understand why maybe they are upset with their agent. Perhaps it’s because their agent doesn’t have much experience? If an agent sells one house every couple of months or so, for example, that real estate agent’s experience level will be very different from an agent like me who sells at least a couple of homes every week, on average, and continually lays her finger on market pulse. Not to mention, I’ve been in the business since the early 1970s and have easily adapted in a chameleon-like manner to changes and technology.
Not every agent is so fortunate. Agents are very different from each other. Should you change agents? That’s a loaded question.
Certain home sellers in Fair Oaks called me over the weekend, super irate with their present agent. I explained that I couldn’t really get into it with them until their agent releases the listing from MLS. I don’t ever want to be accused of swiping a client. Bingo, within the day, it was released.
The agent had removed not only all of the photographs but also the marketing comments! Uh, oh. He must have been really ticked off, a supposition I shared with the sellers. Why did they have to make their agent so angry? Was it him, was it them? I dunno. Not good, though.
During the course of our conversations, the sellers had asked what they could do to improve the photos to sell their home in Fair Oaks. The photos looked like they were shot with a cellphone, for goodness sakes, grainy and tilted. We probably talked for an hour, and I gave them a ton of information and then made an appointment to list the home.
The sellers said they were very grateful as I had opened their eyes. I had shared tips that they never had previously considered and which their agent had never mentioned. I gave them ideas for improving the marketability of their home, including how to stage it, down to the color of the flowers for their dining room table. Two hours before my appointment they shot off an urgent email explaining that their former Fair Oaks REALTOR had apologized and literally begged them to give him another chance.
They said it was the devil you know.
They would incorporate all of my ideas, too, and were extremely appreciative for my assistance.
There all sorts of people trying to sell a home in Sacramento these days and looking for a Fair Oaks REALTOR. It doesn’t mean I will change how I do business or stop offering to help. I wished them well and let it go. Besides, I didn’t share everything, and they have a surprise in store. Funny how that works out.
Selling a Home in Rio Linda When the Surprises Keep Coming
What does a Sacramento real estate agent do when her seller is traveling in Saudi Arabia without cellphone coverage? She doesn’t panic, for one thing. My motto is we can always find a way to take care of a potential problem, but I really had no idea how many challenges were about to present themselves when I accepted a listing in Rio Linda. It looked like a home in the midst of a rehab job. Nobody told me it had been vandalized.
I wrote last July about how I yelled at the poor contractor whose life mantra is Dude, I flaked. He had promised to finish the home by the time it went on the market for sale, but the only good thing I recall about that was I stopped him in the nick of time from tiling the entire home. At least 2 of the 3 bedrooms now have carpeting. I made several trips to Rio Linda to shoot photos, do my inspection, attach contractor’s lock boxes and what have you just to get into escrow. It never occurred to me that I needed to check to see if the faucets worked or the electrical functioned, because the contractor had lived there while he worked on the house.
In fact, I thought the utilities were turned on. Not only were the utilities not turned on, but they were locked by the utility companies, both gas and electricity. The water was shut off, too. Made it fairly difficult for the poor buyers to try to do a home inspection. Of course, this was a VA deal, so we had to order a pest report, and some of the work was not completed by the contractor like it should have been, such as the horrible condition in the master bath shower that looked like somebody had died and plastered their decaying body to the wall.
Once my trusty handymen were able to fill the water heater and ignite the pilot, turning on the water caused a pipe to burst in the attic. Or maybe it was perforated all along, hard to say. The magnificent part of all this was when a licensed electrician went out to the property to fix a few outlets and discovered all of the Romex has been cut and yanked out of the attic. The fun surprises never stopped. Every day, new fresh hell.
This was on top of the title being messed up because it turned out the person we thought was on title was not. Further, the seller who had signed my listing agreement was not really the seller, but those are minor and insignificant points in the overall scheme of things. The fact that I couldn’t talk to the seller or contact the seller because of spotty coverage in the Middle East wasn’t even a factor. Besides, I discovered Viber from a client who travels a lot in China. Great app, check it out if you need to call overseas. It uses WiFi so there’s no roaming or enormous fees.
The miraculous part is this home in Rio Linda closed escrow yesterday. These VA buyers got a home in terrific shape, all new wiring, a new shower, brand new appliances, a roof certification after repairs and they were able to buy the home without putting down any money. The buyer’s agent was also invaluable throughout this long process of repairs. I hope I never do another escrow like this, though.
Don’t Wait for Buyers to Tell You What’s Wrong With Homes in Sacramento
The colors of homes like these in the Netherlands do not work in Sacramento
What works for house colors in countries such as Italy, Ireland or Mexico, does not necessarily work as colors of choice for homes in Sacramento. Personally, I adore colorful homes and would love to see more Americans adopt color, but then again, pioneers tend to get arrows in their backs, so I don’t want to initiate the trend. If you’re expecting to put your home on the market, though, the color of your home down to the color of your carpeting can be the difference between selling or not selling.
Sometimes, these things are not evident to a homeowner nor necessarily apparent to the agent, either. But you find out what’s wrong by putting the home on the market and obtaining buyer feedback. You can do this on your own before putting your home on the market, which is what I advise. You can ask your neighbors and your friends and, what the heck, grab somebody you don’t know off the street and invite them on over. Ask for their honest opinions. Walk through the house and assess every room. Stand in each doorway and stare. What’s wrong with your house? Ask your agent, too. Some agents don’t want to tell you the truth for fear you won’t like them. Tell your agent: go ahead and offend me.
Because you know what? There’s probably something wrong with it. Not in your eyes, of course, but in the eyes of today’s buyers. Your eyes don’t count. You’re leaving and moving away where you can do the same horrible things to your new home. But this home, the one that you’re living in right now? This home needs to change to meet the needs of the buying public. Buyers have certain requirements that homes in Sacramento need to meet.
Yes, I realize you don’t wanna paint that wall or yank up that shag carpeting but you’ll pay for that stubbornness when selling. A neighbor of mine painted her Land Park home the same orange color as the light rail station over on 21st Street. I like it, I just wouldn’t buy it nor want to buy a home next to it because it doesn’t conform. It looks weird. People like homes in Sacramento to be similar and not stand out like a sore thumb. Trust this Sacramento real estate agent, you don’t want to be that weird home when you’re selling a home in Sacramento.
