decor?

krlyr

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

brit1234 was attempting to push your thread to the top of the page past all the footy spam threads on here yesterday so you could get some sensible answers to your question!

My view? About £500. Some prospective buyers would be put off if the property isn't presented as clean and neutral as possible. Some see dark wall-colours and busy wallpaper as a property which needs work doing to it and won't be able to see past it. You just have to view a couple of those "Sell Your House" programmes on the telly to appreciate how a pale and neutral colour-scheme and some serious decluttering can improve how spacious and light a property appears.

Yes, my OH is one of these! There are lots of similar properties down our road, same layout, size, etc. and had we actually been saving up and looking for a place in this area (we were planning to move away as it's quite expensive here), I think OH would have been far more swayed to spend the extra £40k on the nicely decorated ones. As it was, ours came up cheap as the seller was desperate for a sale and admitted he couldn't be bothered jazzing it up, which made it affordable to us at the time.
Some of the nicer houses did have small extensions or conservatories but the price difference was big even accountng for that (plus ours has a garage, whereas many of the others don't - yet still have smaller gardens than ours) - and when I say nicely decorated, they've not spent thousands on it but a clean lick of paint and some nice laminate, compared to the dark blue, flat carpet and alternatively purple and blue walls all over our house :rotfl:
Some people definately buy with their eyes, rather than their imagination. I spent 2 days redecorating the living room, on a budget of about £100, and the difference it made was huge. Repeat that in the 2 bedrooms, minor lick of paint in the bathroom (mostly tiled, but that dreadful purple paint makes an appearance again) and probably a slight bit more work in the kitchen, but for £500 I think it would have made an absolutely massive difference in the look of the house and helped it achieve a much better price. Surveys flagged up very little wrong with it structurally - bit of broken guttering was about the most of it, so luckily I could look past the decor and see it was worth it. The seller just wanted out though, and with no plans to buy another property (he was upping sticks and going travelling) I suppose there was less motivation to have to achieve £x as a minimum, just had to pay off the existing mortgage. Handy for us, at least!

piglet74

thank you, i dont really have much ££ to spend, i have applied for an assisted sale with my lender, i have been cleaning and decluttering all weekend,

like has been mentioned before, when i bought the house, the decor didnt bother me, even the horrible wallpaper in the living room, but now i am selling, i am more worried about it,

i was wondering does not bothering to decorate actually devalue the house in anyway, or does decorating improve the value, but i think it is really more a case of it really just depends on the buyer, how much they want the location etc

thanks for the replies

BitterAndTwisted

The decor should have no effect on the actual value but if it's not presented in the best possible way it could limit the number of interested buyers.


What's an assisted sale?

piglet74

where your lender helps you sell the house, appoints an estate agents and solicitor etc.

terrierlady

only thing that sells a house is price

Waterlily24

We don't take any notice of the decor, as long as the building is OK the decor doesn't matter.

Good luck with selling.

piglet74

Good luck with selling.[/QUOTE]

thank you,

i think i might need it, over the past few years between job turn down, husband made redundant, arrears on the account etc, the place is just becoming a noose around our necks, we could rent for betweeen one third and one half of what we are paying to own the place, so we have applied for an assisted sale and really hope we get it, if we dont, we will be going for voluntary surrender, so lets hope luck is on our side.

Better_Days

Some viewers can see beyond wallpaper and paint colours they don't like, but many can't. Dark colours can make rooms look smaller, and what you want to do is make rooms look bigger.

If there are a lot of similar properties for sale in your area you need to make it as saleable as possible. For me that means sparkling clean, de-cluttered and neutral decoration. When I see rooms that are brightly coloured painted woodchip my heart sinks. It would not necessarily put me off putting in an offer, but if there was a similar property without the woodchip and bright colours I would go for that one. Some wallpaper, especially painted wall paper can be a pain to get off without damaging the plaster. Then there is the potential cost of skimming the walls.

Some people like a project, but many want an easy life, especially after the stress of moving. Neutral decor is for many, easier to live with for a year or two, rather than having to turn round and do something about the bright pink walls which you hate every time you see them!

One other thing, if the decoration is a bit tired buyers may wonder what else hasn't been attended to.

piglet74

we might be lucky as its the only house for sale on the estate, its a quite sought after area, with only 2 other houses for sale in the area (1 a repossession, the other an expensive new build)

Ellie83

The house we're currently buying has an appalling decor. And the vendor clearly made no effort to clean before we went to visit. I think that is why we managed to get it at the price we did. Had it been clean and painted in magnolia or any other neutral colour, I'm sure they would have received more offers.

If anything, I'm happy the decor is so ugly. It means I can put my stamp on it without feeling guilty that I am redecorating something that was fine to begin with. We may have to live with purple walls for quite a while though, as the budget is tight :rotfl: