Cleaning House: Should you hire cleaners after Reno’s?
Saturday, April 29th, 2017Many home sellers turn to professional renovations and improvements as a tool to improve their home equity, asking price, interest in the property, and time on the market. While renovations can increase the sticker price and do often draw in buyers that may not have been attracted to a property before, they can also leave a house dirty and in disarray. During a renovation, sawdust, insulation, tile shavings, and scrap metal find their way into every nook and cranny of a property and can continue to surface weeks and months later. Thankfully, many of the best professional cleaning services offer packages designed explicitly to fit this need. But what are the advantages to hiring a professional cleaner? Are they necessary and worth the cost?
Will a little dust really affect the sale?
There’s a reason why car dealerships, even those that don’t offer maintenance and repair, have car detailing departments. Even if the vehicle runs perfectly and has all the desired features, if it’s coated with dust or bird droppings, the buyer, although they know logically that these problems are easily fixed, will include them in his or her calculations of the car’s value.
And the same principles apply equally to real estate. If a home has a recently renovated kitchen with updated appliances, new cabinetry, and granite countertops, but also has a fine coat of renovation dust, a prospective buyer might only value the improvement at $5,000 or $10,000, instead of the $20,000 the sellers anticipate. Even though a buyer knows that a dust problem can be solved with a phone call and a few hundred dollars, it still affects the way a potential buyer views the house’s features and the previous owners. After all, they might think, “if the previous owners didn’t feel they needed to get the home professionally cleaned after a major renovation, what else could they have skimped on or neglected?”
Can’t I just do it myself?
Sellers often scoff at the thought of hiring professional renovation cleaners and other, similar services: “why should I hire a professional cleaner when I can just do it myself?” But do-it-yourselfers tend to drastically underestimate the time, effort, and equipment it takes to complete a post-renovation deep clean of their property. For professional renovation cleaners, a renovation cleaning can take five or six people five or six hours to complete. So, how many hours can you spare this Saturday afternoon, 30?
And keep in mind, these people are professionals, they know what, where, and how to clean. Dust from a renovation will settle everywhere. I’ve known owners who have found a fresh layer of dust on their computer monitor each morning in their attic office during a basement renovation. That’s the magic, and curse of central ventilation. Trust me, you won’t want a potential buyer to remember making it snow in your guest bedroom after checking to make sure the ceiling fan works instead of your new crown molding or hardwood floors. Dust just doesn’t leave a great impression of a property.
But are professional cleaners worth the money?
The fees house cleaners charge vary drastically depending on many factors, including local market forces, the size of your home, the size of the mess, etc. But, regardless of the price, you have to remember that, when selling a home, it’s the big numbers and the macro transactions that really matter. Selling a dirty home is like trying to win a footrace while wearing ankle weights. You can do it, but chances are, especially in a competitive market, it will take longer than you’d like to cross the finish line. And turnover time is one of the greatest contributors to an ultimately unprofitable real estate transaction. An extra week on the market can mean an extra mortgage payment, staging fees, listing fees–the list goes on. If paying the extra cash up front to get your property professionally cleaned means that your house sells a week or two sooner, then you’ll likely come out ahead in the end.
And the great news is house cleaners often offer deep discounts for monthly or weekly cleaning services, which can be a huge help if you have weekly, public viewings. Ask anyone who’s tried to sell a property during one of our winters: the snow, mud, and salt tracked in by viewers compounds very quickly.
So, you’ve already spent the money on a renovation you hope will bring additional value and a faster sale to your property, now finish the job by hiring professional renovation cleaners to make those improvements shine.
