Before You List in St. George: 12 Things to Fix and 8 to Skip

The rule for getting a house ready to sell is simple to state and hard to follow: fix what an inspector will write up and a buyer will use to renegotiate, and skip what you’d be paying for somebody else’s taste. In St. George the first list has some local entries a checklist from Ohio won’t mention, and the second list is longer than most sellers want to hear.

Twelve things to fix

1. Service the air conditioner, and know how old it is. A buyer touring in July will run it, and the inspector will photograph the data plate. A unit past about fifteen years becomes a credit request in due diligence whether it’s working or not. Service it, replace the filter, and decide in advance whether you’re replacing it or pricing it in.
2. Stucco cracks and the sun side of the house. The south and west walls take the worst of it. Patch the hairline cracks, then paint the faded elevations so they match. Peeling paint on a west wall reads as neglect from the curb.
3. Slipped and cracked roof tiles. Tile lasts decades. The underlayment beneath it doesn’t, and an inspector who sees broken tiles will flag the underlayment’s age. Have a roofer reset the loose ones and tell you how many years the paper has left.
4. Drip irrigation and dead plants. Buyers from out of state assume desert landscaping takes care of itself. Show them it does: fix the leaking emitters, pull the dead agave, rake and top up the gravel. Half a day of work.
5. Fogged windows and torn screens. Heat kills window seals, and a double pane with moisture between the glass gets written up every time. Replace the failed units, and replace or remove torn sun screens rather than leaving them.
6. Hard water. Descale the faucets and shower heads, clean the mineral haze off the shower glass, service the softener if there is one, and note the water heater’s age. This is the cheapest fix on the list and the one most sellers skip.
7. Garage doors and openers. Including the RV bay door, which is probably why the buyer is here. Lubricate the tracks, fix the sensor, replace the remotes.
8. A radon test. Washington County averages about 2.1 picocuries per liter, half the Utah average, but individual homes vary with the soil and the slab, and the state’s disclosure form asks about it. A kit is cheap. Knowing beats guessing on a form you’re signing.
9. Solar, sorted out early. If the panels are leased or financed, call the company now about the transfer process, because a buyer who learns about the lease in due diligence often walks. If they’re owned, gather the production history and the warranty. Owned panels help. A lease usually doesn’t.
10. HOA paperwork and violations. Order the resale documents now, since they take time, and fix the things the HOA would cite: the trailer in the side yard, the faded front door, the dead tree in the parkway.
11. Permits for the casita, the shop, and the pool. Unpermitted work is common here and it surfaces in due diligence. Pull the city’s records for your address and know what you’re disclosing before you disclose it.
12. The disclosure form itself. Utah’s Seller’s Property Condition Disclosure asks about the roof, plumbing, electrical, hazards, and more, answered to your actual knowledge. Read it now. Anything small you’d have to check the box for, the dripping hose bib, the door that sticks, fix instead.

Eight things to skip

1. The kitchen remodel. You’ll pick finishes for a buyer who wanted different ones, and you won’t get the money back. Clean, declutter, and fix the broken drawer.
2. Replacing a sound tile roof. If the tiles are intact and the underlayment has years left, disclose the age and leave it. A new roof on a house you’re leaving is a gift to the next owner.
3. New windows across the house. Replace the failed panes. Don’t replace all of them.
4. Adding a pool. St. George buyers split on pools, and the retirees who make up a big share of them often see one as a chore. You’d be spending a lot to shrink your buyer pool.
5. Installing solar the year you sell. The payback takes years you won’t be there for, and a financed system adds a lien and a transfer to the deal.
6. Ripping out the yard for a designer xeriscape. Working irrigation and live plants are what buyers notice. Nobody pays for the boulders.
7. The high end appliance package. Working, clean, and matching is the bar. Stainless doesn’t need to be professional grade.
8. Converting the garage or RV bay into living space. In this market the bay is the feature. Buyers arriving with a trailer and a side by side pay for it, and a converted one costs you those buyers entirely.

How to decide the borderline cases

Estimate what a buyer would ask for in a credit if you left it alone, then compare it to what fixing it costs you. Buyers ask for more than the repair costs, because they’re pricing in the hassle and the unknown, so a $600 fix that heads off a $2,500 credit request is easy. A $12,000 air conditioner against a $10,000 credit is closer, and the answer depends on whether you want a clean listing or a negotiable one. Either way, decide before you list, not after the inspection report lands.

And do all of it after you know what the house is worth as it stands, because the number decides how much of this is worth doing. A home that will list at $850,000 in Kayenta can justify the roof work. A condo in Green Valley usually can’t.