Advice on what will and will not help a sale

minipenny_2

Hello,

Is anyone here an estate agent or the likes and can give me a bit of advice on what is and isnt worth doing to sell the house.

We've put in a new bathroom and added a walk in shower and have the upstairs rooms neutral painted, new neutral curtains and new lampshades

We need a new kitchen (as there isnt one at all) and we have the supplies so that will be done and we've painted the hallway a nice bright white to make it look more spacious and we have laminate floor.

The living room is a bombsite. We've stripped the artex so the walls need plastering and the carpet is hideous.

Is the carpet really going to put people off. Is it worth shelling out god knows how much on the carpet? we have a horrible carpet on the stairs (green patterned) and the carpet in the 2nd bedroom is a bit old and tatty in places.

Next thing is the outside. Its pebbledash and we thought it might be a nice idea to paint it (cream or whatever) just so it looks clean and nice - do you think this will really make a difference.

Out the back we have 100ft+ of garden space its lovely but I only have a few flowers and a couple of rose bushes should I buy some more to brighten it up or will that sort of thing not
matter

We've also moved everything into storage bar the things we need on a day to day basis so that the house doesnt look cluttered - is there any other advice on what else could help?

Thank you in advance.

We want a quick sale but are runing out of time and seem to have too much on the to do lists with limited funds now. Is best bet just getting an estate agent round once we finish the kitchen to advise us?

DRP

good luck! neutral and clean is the way to go, although only you know your money situation and what you can afford to do before you sell.

My 2p worth: I would do the kitchen and living room but not the carpets (as long as they aren't disgustingly dirty) - to many people, redoing a whole room (or 2) is very daunting, but changing carpets or decorating is actually a bit of a pleasure....

In my experience the estate agent offers very little practical advice on how to 'improve' your chances of a sale ... i think the rule of thumb is that you must price the house accordingly if many important jobs are required ...

minipenny_2

DRP wrote: »

good luck! neutral and clean is the way to go, although only you know your money situation and what you can afford to do before you sell.

My 2p worth: I would do the kitchen and living room but not the carpets (as long as they aren't disgustingly dirty) - to many people, redoing a whole room (or 2) is very daunting, but changing carpets or decorating is actually a bit of a pleasure....

In my experience the estate agent offers very little practical advice on how to 'improve' your chances of a sale ... i think the rule of thumb is that you must price the house accordingly if many important jobs are required ...

Fab, thanks for that Carpets are all clean just 1940's swirly patterns lol!!!

And dont expect estate agents to be at all helpful.....Got it

so really if I get the important jobs sorted (sinking drive, plaster the downstairs and paint outside so it looks bright and inviting) and it has a nice new kitchen and bathroom done then the carpets are not going to hinder too much.

I just dont want to spend say 600 quid on carpets only to have people come in and say, right we'll change the carpet lol

drummer_666

yeah, I agree.

I think, that even people that want something they can move into right away and not do any work to, would be in the mindset "it's not apart from the carpets, change them and its great"

I def agree with doing a repaint of the outside if this is paricularly bad, as this is a job that would prob put a lot of people off. The same with plaster inside and then a fresh lick of neutral paint

DannyboyMidlands

I'd change the carpets. I don't see the point in redecorating and painting everything neutral but leaving the old carpets in place. The job will look half finished and it will totally let the side down. You may as well have just left everything as is and saved a load of money and effort.

DRP

It all depends on what the buyer is willing to commit in terms of time and money....

DannyboyMidlands wrote: »

I'd change the carpets. I don't see the point in redecorating and painting everything neutral but leaving the old carpets in place. The job will look half finished and it will totally let the side down. You may as well have just left everything as is and saved a load of money and effort.

i disagree as a major refit of a lounge and a kitchen will cost 1000s and cause disruption, dirt and even render the place uninhabitable for days or weeks ... not very attractive to most buyers

changing the carpets doesn't cause disruption for mroe than a day or two and is much much cheaper (and is actually optional - 'retro' styling is quite fashionable these days :cool:)

as I implied in my prev post - making the place livable (install kitchen, defuse the "bombsite" of a lounge) will make it more sellable to those who just want to move in

DannyboyMidlands

I dunno. Sounds like it'll look half finished and/or botched to me. We used to call it "toshed" round my way 10 years ago.

ie get in there, slap on a bit of magnolia, hide any nasties and sell it on.

I think that these days this stuff needs to be done properly. Buyers can smell a half-arsed job a mile off and know they'll have to spend time and money sorting things out.

I reckon do it properly or not at all.

minipenny_2

DRP wrote: »

-'retro' styling is quite fashionable these days

I'm going to put that in my house advert :rotfl: Neutral decor complimented by retro carpets :rotfl:

I just tried to do things based on what I would look for if spending the amount its going up for (based on similar house up roads asking price)

I figured I would love a brand new kitchen and bathroom a tidy 100ft garden and the parking for 4 cars and that would sell it enough for me. I thought I would hate the artex that covered EVERY wall in the house and therefore felt smoothing that was a priority in selling.
We bought the house cheap due to the amount needing doing to it when we were factoring in what it needed carpets were at the bottom of our list but I guess everyones different.

The outside just lookos worn - it was covered in ivy when we bought which we have got rid of but you can imagine it leaves a bit of grubbiness behind so I felt a lick of masonary paint would brighten it up and look a bit more attractive.

cattie

I think I'd agree on changing carpets if they are old 40's onwards swirly types. These type of carpets can make a room look very small and claustrophobic and there are some buyers who can't see past this type of thing. No matter what the wall decoration is like, an ea will always label a property with this kind of carpeting as 'in need of updating'.

What is under the carpets? Are there lovely floorboards? If so perhaps get rid of carpets and let people see they can have a nice wooden floor to varnish, paint or whatever they prefer.

Or buy some very cheap neutral carpet. It was what the vendors had put down in some of the rooms in my house shortly before I bought the place. As soon as I moved in and had the place refurbished, this carpet was dumped on the skip, but I was delighted to find absolutely pristine and lovely floorboards hiding underneath.

DRP

DannyboyMidlands wrote: »

I dunno. Sounds like it'll look half finished and/or botched to me. We used to call it "toshed" round my way 10 years ago.

ie get in there, slap on a bit of magnolia, hide any nasties and sell it on.

I think that these days this stuff needs to be done properly. Buyers can smell a half-arsed job a mile off and know they'll have to spend time and money sorting things out.

I reckon do it properly or not at all.

i don't disagree with 'properly' - but properly doesn't have to be EVERYTHING.

DRP

minipenny wrote: »

I'm going to put that in my house advert :rotfl: Neutral decor complimented by retro carpets :rotfl:

I just tried to do things based on what I would look for if spending the amount its going up for (based on similar house up roads asking price)

I figured I would love a brand new kitchen and bathroom a tidy 100ft garden and the parking for 4 cars and that would sell it enough for me. I thought I would hate the artex that covered EVERY wall in the house and therefore felt smoothing that was a priority in selling.
We bought the house cheap due to the amount needing doing to it when we were factoring in what it needed carpets were at the bottom of our list but I guess everyones different.

The outside just lookos worn - it was covered in ivy when we bought which we have got rid of but you can imagine it leaves a bit of grubbiness behind so I felt a lick of masonary paint would brighten it up and look a bit more attractive.

absolutely! our house is fairly immaculate (imo ) inside, but the outside render has a fair bit of cracking on it and i would imagine this would put a lot of people off....