Fit new kitchen before selling?

la_farfallina

Have just called in to pick your brains.....

I am planning to sell my one bedroom flat in the near future.

The thing is, the small kitchen is more than twenty years old and looks, well, manky is the word that comes to mind.

Do you think I should get a new cheapish kitchen installed?
Or should I rip out the units, work tops etc and leave a blank canvas?
Or should I leave it as it is and price the flat accordingly.

I know the market is slow and I want do the best thing in order to sell.

Thanks,

Farf x

poppysarah

No kitchen = no mortgage.

Leave as is. Be prepared for the price to be dropped if it's really gross - but get it decluttered and scrubbed clean and put some nice accessories out.
The EAs who give you valuations will suggest if it's that bad.

If it's usable then it's not a problem.

A new kitchen might just be a waste of your time and money. A quick sale is more likely to be dependent on price than a kitchen.

The_Drama_Llama

I saw several houses with obviously cheap new kitchens which I would have just ripped out and replaced. Horrible waste. Leave it as is and price accordingly.

neverdespairgirl

If you rip everything out and don't replace it, your potential buyers won't be able to get a mortgage.

If you do replace it with the cheapest possible, then that might not help much.

Make sure it's clean and tidy, and the buyers can then choose what they want.

If you do install a new kitchen, make sure it's not too quirky - some people will hate it.

For example, this flat - they boast about the expensive new kitchen, but I think it's horrible - dodgy layout AND a really bright shiny red, which would do my head in every morning

http://www.primelocation.com/uk-property-for-sale/details/id/SPTLA464/

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

poppysarah wrote: »

sale is more likely to be dependent on price than a kitchen.

Spectacularly bad advice.

Particularly for an FTB flat, where buyers are unlikely to have wads of cash to buy a new kitchen.

Perhaps you should declare your vested interest in a price crash in your sig, what with being a regular hpc poster.....

Jimmy_31

I would leave it as it is and price accordingly, when i buy my home id rather have the option to choose and fit my own kitchen than have somebody else do it for me, plus it saves you the hassle of having the work done.

la_farfallina

Thank you for your replies - I didn't know that no usable kitchen meant no mortgage!
I also hadn't thought of the waste if new buyers ripped my new cheap kitchen out coz they didn't like it.

I will give it a lick of paint and replace the worktops - they look really scuzzy because I used to clean them with bleach and didn't know that bleach wasn't good for worktops.

Thanks again,

Farf x

Jimmy_31

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Spectacularly bad advice.

Particularly for an FTB flat, where buyers are unlikely to have wads of cash to buy a new kitchen.

Perhaps you should declare your vested interest in a price crash in your sig, what with being a regular hpc poster.....

when i start making offers on houses i can see me having problems with people who have fitted an expensive kitchen to their homes and now think the asking price should be a lot higher.

I am hoping to find a seller who hasnt just splashed out on a new kitchen to try and sway me into buying their house, i have a vested interest in this you see because im a carpenter so it costs me absolutely nothing to fit my own kitchen and i get discounts of up to 70% on any kitchen i buy, thats 70% discount on the real price not the one thats advertised to the public, so its the asking price of the house i am interested in and not the fact that its got a new kitchen installed.

So what im saying is that im a FTB and would rather people didnt fit new kitchens when trying to sell their homes because when they add the cost of fitting the kitchen to the asking price (which most do ) i would end up a lot worse off by having paid somebody else to fit a kitchen that i could have fitted myself and also got the kitchen a lot cheaper than the current home owner.

When i purchase my first home i may or may not have a spare few quid to fit a kitchen, if i havent then ill make do with the current kitchen as its not really the end of the world not having a shiny new kitchen as soon as i move into my new home.

This post isnt directed at the OP.

poppysarah

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Spectacularly bad advice.

Particularly for an FTB flat,

No it's not.

Clean the kitchen. Repaint. Repair any problems. Declutter. Add nice accessories.

Don't waste money on a new kitchen in a 1 bed flat.

1 bed flats are FTB or even BTL fodder.

The price is most important for FTB at the moment. Mortgages are getting harder to get.
Also going from a FTB property to a bigger one means needing more money - so why waste it on a new kitchen in a place you are moving from.

You either spend very little and get a cheap kitchen, or spend a silly amount of money which doesn't add any value to the property (As people expect a kitchen - rather than expecting a luxury kitchen in a ftb property)

You are unlikely to reap the financial return on investing in a new kitchen - even if you fit it yourself. How many people are able to have the tools and skills to fit a new kitchen?

It's much better to make the most of what you have for as little as possible.

Jimmy_31

poppysarah wrote: »

No it's not.

Clean the kitchen. Repaint. Repair any problems. Declutter. Add nice accessories.

Don't waste money on a new kitchen in a 1 bed flat.

1 bed flats are FTB or even BTL fodder.

The price is most important for FTB at the moment. Mortgages are getting harder to get.
Also going from a FTB property to a bigger one means needing more money - so why waste it on a new kitchen in a place you are moving from.

You either spend very little and get a cheap kitchen, or spend a silly amount of money which doesn't add any value to the property (As people expect a kitchen - rather than expecting a luxury kitchen in a ftb property)

You are unlikely to reap the financial return on investing in a new kitchen - even if you fit it yourself. How many people are able to have the tools and skills to fit a new kitchen?

It's much better to make the most of what you have for as little as possible.

very sensible advice.

i can understand that not everybody is in the same position as me due to me being able to do any work needed to the house i buy as its what i do for a living, but a lot of the private work i get in my area is from friends or acquaintances who move into their new homes and need work doing like fiiting a kitchen or hanging new doors etc and many a time i have gone to these new homes and ripped out perfectly good almost brand new items and replaced them with a style of item that the new home owner prefers so im guessing they didnt pay over the odds for the house just because it has had an expensive new shiny kitchen fitted and knowing full well they were going to change it in the near future.

By the way hamish i get quite a lot of my kitchen fitting work from FTBs who have just moved into their new homes (obviously not new builds), 9 times out of 10 its the first room in the house to get done up and over the years i know many a friend who has just borrowed more than they needed when getting their mortgage so that they can get a new kitchen fitted straight away.

harrup

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Spectacularly bad advice.

Particularly for an FTB flat, where buyers are unlikely to have wads of cash to buy a new kitchen.

Perhaps you should declare your vested interest in a price crash in your sig, what with being a regular hpc poster.....

I vehemently disagree with YOUR premise ....and I have no vested interest either way.

You may be correct whereby some FTB single MALE buyers are more interested in a newish, cheap non-descript kitchen than a price reduction/reflection...but that's how far it goes. To extrapolate from that to FTB at large is, IMO, fallacious.

Unless a kitchen is in a truly appaling state, a price reduction permitting the future buyer to make their house their HOME, i.e. the way they want it, is much more enticing.

Unless they buy it as a BTL, of course.....