Currently I’m in escrow on my listing at 953 Patricia Way and we are scheduled to close escrow on Monday. The buyers are paying with all cash. The last home I sold a couple of weeks ago at 120 Holmes Ave was also all cash, going $51,000 over the asking price. Both offers had no contingencies, because we had all our inspections up front, and quick closes because cash buyers can do that.
Looking back, in the past six months half the homes I sold were to buyers who used all cash and didn’t need loans. That’s what happens in a market when prices and interest rates are high. The buyers who can most afford to purchase homes are the ones with the most money.
The uncertainty of the current administration and the tariff policies is not helping. I have a fixer coming on the market later this month and I’ve had some interest from contractors. One of them brought up the fact that he didn’t know what materials would cost moving forward. These unknowns cloud investment decision, which is never a good thing. Markets and investors do not like uncertainty. If you can nail down your costs, you can make good decisions.
I believe I personally made a good decision recently. I contracted with a company to redo my pool. When I bought my house, I didn’t want a pool. The pool has been nice on warm summer days, even though it was a bit unsightly with a discolored bottom, many missing tiles and cracking around the pool under the coping. There are several good reasons I decided to make this large capital expenditure. (1) I’m getting older and this will likely/hopefully be the only time I need to redo the pool in my lifetime. If I had done this 8 years ago when I bought the house that probably would not have been the case. (2) It’s likely never going to be less expensive to do the pool: nothing gets cheaper in time, and I couldn’t afford it 8 years ago. (3) A nice pool will increase the property value and desirability. If I ever go to sell the pool will be a positive rather than a negative so I feel like it is a good investment.
The two things I always consider when upgrading my house are how it will affect the property value and what kind of enjoyment will I get out of those upgrades? So often in my career I’ve seen people update their homes just prior to selling which is great, but it would have been nice if they could have enjoyed the benefit of those upgrades while they lived there. That’s what I intend to do.