Reviews
April 22, 2001
"My wife and I recently sold our house in Poulsbo. The house was occupied for many years by my Mother-In-Law, and it needed some repairs. Our Real Estate Agent recommended that we fix everything that was “broken” and also update select items that would make the house hard to sell as-is. Our agent also introduced us to Ken Howlett as somebody who could help us quickly. We don’t live in the area, so we really needed local help. Ken helped us in many ways, which I will try to list here: ● Identify everything that was “broken,” plus identify the low cost repair solution: Ken fixed most of the problems, but he also worked with us to allow us to fix some of the easier items ourselves. For example, I purchased a new front door at Lowes but Ken installed it. ● List the features that could be easily upgraded to make the house more modern and easy to sell: This allowed us to evaluate the potential benefit versus the cost for each idea. For example, we decided to replace all the upstairs trim, but we decided to leave the kitchen cabinets as-is. Ken also referred us to a tree-service that opened a nice little view of Liberty Bay. ● Houses access management: Ken maintained a set of keys, so we could allow other contractors to have access, such as the chimney sweep. This was a big deal since we were not in town. ● Subcontractor management: Ken organized and supervised the painter. ● Every time something went off the plan, Ken fixed it. I ran out of time to take away the last dump run (after closing). Ken picked it up and disposed of it on short notice. ● Finally, Ken responded quickly to Buyer requests that we put into the Sales Agreement. Ken made all the changes requested by the Buyer within a week! He also walked through the work with the Buyer on site. We spent about 15% of the house value in the remodel, but we recouped about doublethat in the sale. More importantly, Ken’s work caused the house to look great and sell quickly. We had a full price offer in 4 days, and it closed in less than a month. I recommend you to work with Ken to fix up your house before the sale. Follow his advice. Good luck."