Does New Kitchen increase house value?

boogiesherbs

Hi all i know this is a matter of opinion not fact but would a new fitted kitchen (old one is 15 years old!) increase the houses value?

The kitchen we are considering is £8000 all in fitted,

House value currently £125000 ish

Nick:beer:

leveller2911

I'm not sure it does, kitchens are a very personal taste ,so what you/I like the next person won't.

Leif

3 years ago I put an offer on a house for £290,000, a large reduction on the asking price, which was accepted. It had been on the market for a long time. I withdrew a few days later on finding the huge oak in the garden had a tree protection order. 6 months later they put in back on the market, and sold it, and they had added a new kitchen. They got £300,000 and it sold fairly quickly. Not proof, but the new kitchen helped it sell and added value.

The worst thing you can do is put in a cheap kitchen. Prospective buyers will factor in replacing it. I think if it is a fairly mainstream kitchen design, it will add value, assuming the old one is tatty and obviously out dated. Avoid individual colour schemes.

macman

Just put in new doors and worktops if it's a bit tatty.

katejo

Several years ago when I was first looking at replacing my old kitchen, I asked an estate agent the following : imagine that you are selling 2 houses which are very similar except that 1 has an old but working kitchen and the other has a brand new decent quality one . Answer : no difference in selling price but the one with the new kitchen would sell more quickly .

I would rather buy a house with an old kitchen than one with a cheap poor quality one .

southcoastrgi

there are three things that sell a house (providing it isn't in a bad area or falling down), a nice kitchen. full central heating & a good looking bathroom, buying a house is generally decided by a woman, so she looks at first a good kitchen, then a nice bathroom & finally if they have to spend money upgrading a heating system

tired_dad

Wit he/she said

sancho

As said, don't think it will add value, it may help it sell quicker.

The house we are currently in had a new kitchen, it was seemingly designed by a blind monkey. It was also not quite our taste. I spent a bit of money and time moving things around so it actually worked as a kitchen but don't want to replace it completely as it seems a waste

If you're going to live there long enough to get the benefit of an £8k kitchen then that's cool, if you move within the next couple of years then don't expect to see much of it back.

keystone

southcoastrgi wrote: »

there are three things that sell a house (providing it isn't in a bad area or falling down), a nice kitchen. full central heating & a good looking bathroom, buying a house is generally decided by a woman, so she looks at first a good kitchen, then a nice bathroom & finally if they have to spend money upgrading a heating system

This is spot on. To add to it though the woman looks at something in the property and thinks "I don't like that - thats a no". Even if its a red carpet where she would ideally want a blue one. The man looks at the same thing and thinks "I don't like that but it can be easily changed". This is an autoamtic process in both brains. No I do not know why.

Cheers

Jaynne

As above - it may add a little value or at least not loose it compared to the cost of putting one in but kitchens are very individual in taste. If the current one is old and tatty and you replace it with something that won't offend the majority you probably won't "loose" your money and will help your house sell faster.

lessonlearned

Boogie I think that adding a brand new £8K kitchen just to sell a house at approx £125K is not the best use of your money.

Don't forget you are at the stamp duty threshold and this will impact on any added value.

An £8k kitchen does not automatically equate to £8k on the value of your property, you would be lucky if it made £4k difference and that would set you just above the SDT and therefore buyers will just haggle down to avoid the 1% tax.

Unless it is absolutely manky and dropping to bits you will be better off with a simple "makeover".

TBH most buyers will eventually replace the kitchen anyway, or at least rejig it to suit their own requirements.

What you need is to ensure that the kitchen is working properly, ie any appliances you leave should be in good working order, drawers and doors open and close properly and are not hanging off their hinges, that kind of thing. Also you need to make it attractive so that the buyer is happy enough to use it for at least a year so that they can take their time before making any changes.

If the kitchen cabinets are sound then I would replace the doors and worktops only. Perhaps a nice trendy new tap.

I recently had this done to sell my house because I had recently had a small fire which had melted some of the wall cupboard doors and the worktops were getting rather shabby.

It cost me £700, including fitting and this also included a specialist gas safety engineer because I had an inset gas hob. New spot lights cost me £40 and my workman kindly fitted these for me too.

I then simply deep cleaned it paying particular attention to the tiles which I re-grouted where necessary and then cleaned the existing grout with special grout cleaner - £3. The tiles came up like new.

Then I repainted the ceiling and gave the walls a coat of emulsion paint £20, re-glossed all the woodwork and doors. I then bought a few new bits and pieces to "dress" the room, tea towels, some herbs in pots on the window-cill, vase of flowers (from the garden so free) for the kitchen table.

When finished my "new" kitchen would not have looked out of place in the pages of a magazine - total cost less than £800.

My buyers loved it.