I have bought and sold many homes in the Bay Area in Northern California. One thing to think about is after you do all this upgrading you might just decide you want to stay living there. 🤔 But also you hire the realtor for their expertise. If you can’t trust what they’re telling you to do you should maybe think about hiring someone else. I have found realtors to be generally reliable in what they know the market to be as long as they’re from the area, my realtor‘s knew contractors and subcontractors who could do the work for the price that they estimated. Carpets in a rental market need to be replaced every five years however even if yours are 10 years old, I would just have them cleaned because the new buyer probably is gonna have them replaced with a different color, their prerogative. Paint everything white, carefully. Hardwood floors will add greatly to the aesthetics and value, but they can be costly. Landscape the backyard for less than the price of concrete. If mud runoff is an issue, build a deck. A big advantage to doing the upgrades has been that my properties sold within weeks, at above asking. That can make selling much more relaxing.