Carpet or laminate? 28 February 2017 at 2:51PM in In My Home (includes DIY) MoneySaving 21 replies 6.8K views

luverlyjuberly

I am planning to sell my house - What is the current thoughts on type of flooring with view to impressing potential buyers?
Carpet or laminate?

Is laminate going out of fashion?

Also any thought on colour of carpet - if decided on. I know patterned is a no-no and a neutral colour best, beige, brown, other?
Thanks for any help, thoughts.

rach_k

I hate laminate with a passion so I'd always vote for a neutral carpet. When we moved into our house, the stairs and hallways were carpeted in a sort of beige but it has a mottled/flecked effect. I probably wouldn't have chosen it myself but I've kept it as it's unoffensive (I didn't actually notice it when we viewed the house) and has to be really dirty before it looks manky!

ST1991

I prefer laminate. We ripped out all the carpet in the house when we bought it (although most of it was super gross and old).

Personal preference. Don't think either will make or break the sale! I wouldn't even bother replacing it as someone might come in and rip it out anyway...

Whatever it is, make sure it is clean

Chanes

We skipped laminate and went for engineered wood. But given the choice of a good carpet or a good laminate, I'd take the laminate. Carpets hold way too much of what you walk through when walking in the streets.

Silvertabby

If you are planning to sell, is your current carpet so bad it isn't up to a good clean? A professional carpet cleaner would be cheaper (and less hassle) than changing - for carpet or laminate.

If you really must change, then it depends on your target market - a family would be ok with hard flooring, but an older couple may be put off by it.

d0nkeyk0ng

Depends on what you have - if you currently have carpet, get it cleaned. If you have laminate, clean it and repair any minor damage. Otherwise, leave it as it is. Unless your house doesn't get sold, changing it is just going to cost you money.

I hate wooden flooring. I like comfy carpets. But then again, everyone knows to take their shoes off in the porch before entering.

luverlyjuberly

I don't have any floor coverings at present except in spare room - they were really old and manky so I chucked them. Downstairs is concrete floor. Been like it for years as I was ill for 5 years and had no money & could not replace them. I now want to move as I am no longer enjoying where I live. Thanks for the replies so far.

ancientofdays

I like proper wooden floors or carpet, never laminate. We looked at a house recently where the entire downstairs storey was laminate and although that wasn't the major reason for not making an offer, it did put us off a bit as we'd have had to carpet the entire thing.

If you are selling, a rug doctor is cheap to hire easy to use (though rather heavy) and very effective.

MX5huggy

Get cheap carpet, well fitted with underlay (unless the house is worth hundreds of thousands). Fitting laminate well is a messy expensive process in comparison.

glasgowdan

I'd go with carpet but with the thickest underlay you can get, given you've been living with bare concrete floors for years you may not appreciate how cold it makes a house feel.

Frudd

If you do go down the laminate route, dont get the cheapest stuff. We put the thickest stuff wickes do down in our old place, it was easy to fit and it felt solid under foot, we put some of the thinner stuff in one of the bedrooms and you could tell it was cheap and it was harder to fit.