12 Tips on The Façade of Your Home

Branch Rickey, the great Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager, was best known for integrating baseball by taking the first step of signing Jackie Robinson. Rickey also had a philosophy that it was always better to trade an older player a year too early than a year too late. This also applies to your home.

The underlayment starts to go on homes usually between the 20-25 year mark. If you live in a subdivision like we do (more important if the homes are built at the same time), it’s best to sell your home before the first shot is fired. That means at the 16 to 18 year mark. Insurance costs on roofs are also going up at the 10-15 year mark so people may become cognizant of it even earlier. If your home was built between 2002-2006, that means you. Homes in Mirabella, Mirasol, The Isles, Abacoa, Frenchman’s Reserve, Evergrene, and more are all coming up. There was a massive building boom 23-25 years ago so roofers are going to be crazy busy in a few years with roof replacements. The reason you want to sell early is because Buyers are emotional. They buy kitchens and baths and pools. Roofs are meh! But, they are expensive. The extra net profit of selling early is the cost of the roof and that’s $25,000 + pocket money for you, depending on the size of the house. But once the first few shots of roof replacements are fired, your opportunity is over. As with pregnancies, there is something in the water and everyone starts to replace at the same time. So here are a few tips for once you hit that roof mark on changing the façade of you home.

Prepare in advance for roofs. Save $1,000 -$1500 a year in a separate bank account, especially if you are a first time homebuyer. Roofs are expensive and you pay in 1 lump sum. One good thing is that we are seeing a $600 drop in our insurance cost with a new roof.

Prepare for stress and ugly and danger. We are replacing our roof and we also trimmed back our tree and ripped out the ivy on our wall leaving these brown spots. My daughter got home for school and literally shrieked out “What’s Happening!!!” like in the Poltergeist movie with the tree off the bedroom. We even have the tree to match! *** A word to the wise is to buy a magnet after the roof work has been taken off. Even after the roofers clean up, rain and the Florida grass will hide rusty nails and other pieces of metal. Here are a few examples I have picked up in the last week:

Go concrete flat tile instead of S-Tile and gray if you can. It goes with more paint colors for the house, is in vogue and easier to sell.

Shop around. I prefer hot mop over peel and stick from builders I’ve talked to. Watch our Real Estate Roundtable special on Roofs HERE! Costs can be all across the board. Some medium size builders who are busy might jack up prices if they are full. Make sure to get a transferable warranty as it’s important for resales. Separate out gutter costs and fascia costs so you understand them as well. See our scrubbed list of Vendors that we recommend.

Impact glass today makes a difference in look. If your windows are 20 + years old and starting to fog, impact glass today I think gives a positive ROI and it looks good. The positive ROI comes from resale (I’ve changed my opinion on this and there are energy savings also). More on impact glass https://www.echofineproperties.com/7-home-improvement-impact-glass/

Paint the house white. Have your painter physically paint a sample of your home. Look at it both in shadow and in sunlight. You can go white/grey/black on the trim. And even metals and woods now on accents, but keeping the house in the white family gives you a better empty palate for style and resell.

Accents with grey/white/black on the trim and moldings and border. You can mix in woods and metals now on the accents. Drive your neighborhood and other new neighborhoods – Artisty, Alton, and Avenir are good ones for ideas right now.

Accent with color in your landscaping. A trellis on a wall is great but I wouldn’t do ivy. We just pulled our ivy down. It was fun but they had grown giant branches. Keeping bugs and rats at bay can be an issue. Ivy can also eat into the stucco and cause water intrusion. We had none (our house is a solid concrete wall), but I know many who have. More info on landscaping here.

Garage Doors. Go more bold here. Use metal but blacks, greys, and wood tones can be used as accents for pop. There are some contemporary designs with lots of modern impact glass that are very cool and will help your home shine.

Columns that were built in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s should be changed to be more boxed or use of modern metal. This is not that expensive and can be a great accent.

Driveways. I’d go more modern here with grey white bricks or paint.

Pools. White Marbles, waterfalls, glass tile, flagstone, and more. https://www.echofineproperties.com/pools-style-important/

Jeff Lichtenstein is owner and broker of Echo Fine Properties, a luxury real estate brokerage selling real estate in Jupiter and homes in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He has 20 years of real estate experience, has closed over a 1,000 transactions, and manages over 50 agents in a non-traditional model of real estate that mimics a traditional business model. Some publications he has been quoted in.

Feel free to ask him a question directly at [email protected].