Half a block from the park in the up and coming Berkley neighborhood was a cute story and a half with decades of history. Another casualty in the real estate slump this home proved to be a lesson not soon to be forgotten. The sellers had made an effort to see that the interior was freshly painted and in relatively good repair. With the addition of living room, dining room and bedroom furnishings the interior spaces were warm and inviting. Our suggestions to trim the front hedges to sharpen the street appeal gave this vintage home head turning looks. What proved to be a sore point to most perspective buyers were deferred repairs to the exterior of the home, in particular the old wood windows in desperate need of repair and peeling paint on the siding. In spite of our suggestions to the sellers to correct these issues they felt lowering the price would attract a buyer willing to overlook the flaws. Not in this market. The lesson here; for the want of a couple of thousand dollars in repairs the sellers ended up dropping their price by over twenty thousand dollars and had the property on the market over seven months.

Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to ignore our “Home work”.