Home Sellers have new options when selling a home: help with pre-sale, home inspection repairs.

Baltimore Maryland/ Washington D.C.

When preparing to sell your home, there are several things you can do before and during the home sale process that will help you get maximum returns and reduce your time on market. Often, some contractors like to push for a whole house renovation but Teris Pantazes, co-founder of Baltimore and Washington D.C. Based Settle Rite Pre Sale Home Improvement has advice and warns against this.

For over 30 years, Mr. Pantazes has worked on hundreds of homes that were being sold or being preparing to be put on market. His experience includes working with home sellers, banks, and even municipalities and developing a plan which would help a home move quickly.

“They key is knowing your market” Pantazes states. “Simply taking a shotgun approach and replacing everything in the home is not always the best option, in fact, it can reduce your return on investment and often money is wasted by a contractor who wants to install a high price home improvement product that buyers really don’t want and your realtor doesn’t need”. Pantazes is referring to items that often are high dollar but rarely fetch a return.

A recent study found that the average homebuyer spends between 15 and 25 minutes in a home prior to making a decision. If this is accurate, an item like focusing your funds or finances on a kitchen or bathroom remodel gives the highest return, because those are the items that buyers remember. However, there is a point of diminishing returns as home sellers decide to invest money in their homes and each circumstance is unique. A kitchen or bathroom investment might have a 60% return for some home sellers whereas sealing your driveway might provide none (imagine how many home buyers look at a driveway before making an offer compared to the new countertops you have installed).

Pantazes also highlights the amount of time it takes to renovate an entire home. “When selling a property, as any realtor would attest, time is of the essence and a home seller must hit at the right moment and be ready for negotiation. Realtors don’t want to engage on your property and then wait 2 months for a contractor to do a full renovation or rehab. This holds up the sale”. In fact, in the U.S., most homes are sold in the warmer spring and summer months and if a home seller were to start a renovation in mid-summer, chances are they would loose most of the potential buyers for that home sale season.

In summary, when preparing your home for market, it is much more important to use a professional group that is focused on precision updates that have the highest return, not a shotgun approach of renovate everything. Each property is unique and you want to work with a company like Settle Rite to determine which updates and improvement will get you the most return on your investment and interest buyers to move quickly.

Work with on-demand handyman app: Here is the details on fees

An image comparing TaskRabbit, Handy, Takl, and Homee. This is taken from EFynch's website but we have verified the information. Takl (from Nashville) comes in the highest and seems the be the "boldest" (not in a good way). Taskrabbit is 2nd both groups assess a 40%+ fee. Competitors are lower and have better sites.

Working with an on demand- handyman app can be a valuable prospect.

Home Improvement is one of the last industries to engage in digital and it is one of the largest in the U.S.

Historically, home improvement has also been hard for advertisers as the field is crowded and the smart run away with the work leaving the small and independent guys to fend for scraps.  Around Maryland and Washington D.C., most independent handyman take year to build a customer base and typically the more successful guys are in their later years of their careers and had started while in their early 20's to build their rolodex.

Enter technology. Apps and the digital world are trying to reshape this. We are still in the early years of this movement but we looked at several local companies in the Maryland/ D.C./ and Virginia areas to see how each stacked up and treated their listed service providers.

Here is a list:

Taskrabbit: A quick Google Search shows several lawsuits in the past. With taskrabbit you are somewhat working for their organization. They say they do this to control standards but it seems to be a way to dictate price.

Handy: Same as Taskrabbit- you actually work for Handy. I had a Handy housecleaner work at my house before- she gave me her number as she left and I used her for another 2 years. They take such a high fee I didn't think it was fair.

Takl: Takl is a new group out of Nashhville. Working with Takl appears to be okay at first because the founder is a good ole boy who has been known to treat people right. This is good EXCEPT- Takl only allows for limited jobs and takes the highest commission cuts out of any of the competitors. Takl has to pay for all the commercials you hear and at the end- you may only walk away with 50% of what the customers has paid. Competition will likely overtake this group very quickly.

EFynch: We like EFynch. It's an open platform and they take the smallest fees (a modest 2% currently). The platform is 100% open and EFynch claims to be a community for connections (homeowner and handyman). This local group has promise and one of the few which has no restrictions on how many jobs you must take. 

We could not find much on Homee. Unlike TaskRabbit and Takl, Homee has has little press but the rates still seem extremely high.

See the chart above. Handyman and home improvement is competitive. Contractors need to find new ways to reach customers because the industry is shifting and the old dinosaurs will be left in the cold.  As we just celebrated Independance day in Washington D.C., we have to wait and see how the year unfolds in this industry. Things are changing but in our opinion commission rates are FAR too high for full penetration.

So if you need a handyman still where to go? It is still about going out and getting bids wherever you can and comparing multiple options for that next contractor.