Decoration status of the house when selling and effect on price

detomassino

Dear All,


I am going to sell my house which has been rented for a couple of years.



It was thoroughly refurbished 8 years ago but now it would need painting. There is also a board around the kitchen sink which was damaged by water and doesn't look nice.


My question is to what extent such decoration issues affect the price?


Is it something worth doing or can do without it?


Best regards,
T


PS: I know the question is too general so to add a bit of a context. It is a bungalow in a desirable location. The estate agent who is doing the sale tells me he sold 2 in the area over past 2 years, they both went above asking price within first week of being put on the market. He tells me not to bother but I feel differently and would weer towards doing it in order to get better price.

babyblade41

Price will reflect the decorative state and make it a lot less desirable to many.

I would spend a weekend getting it up to a nice clean standard with fresh paint...it does help including the garden

thriftylass

I think it might not necessarily affect the price but the willingness to pay it or put an offer in in general. First impressions etc, might put potential buyers off as they think, oh, that needs done, and that and that even if it is just superficially cosmetic. Some people can't see past it. Just takes a weekend to paint and replace a board. I'd do it even just to bring more potential buyers through the door after looking at the EA pictures.

davidmcn

Depends what you mean by "needing" painted - I would certainly do anything which is obviously damaged or grubby. Can't do any harm to freshen up the decor anyway.

sgun

I would definitely do it - most buyers don't see through how the house is decorated and furnished. We just sold and repainted every room walls and skirts, I didn't think it would make a difference as the paint wasn't old but I could really see the benefit after we had finished. Also we filled in all the cracks and cleaned all the carpets, new carpet in one room where it was really grubby. We spent about £800 but sold for 7k more than a similar house nearby that looked like it needed refreshing.

getmore4less

Too fresh and you open up the what's that new paint hiding.

have a read of the why won't my house sell threads to look at what needs doing to stage the place.

One thing a lot of people seem to miss is hiding anything that point to lack of storage.

Some don't make the beds.
...

letitbe90

Even if it doesn't impact price, it could be the differene between someone viewing a property or not - or perhaps even making an offer or not.

Even a place looks kind of worn and not looked after (which usually happens in rented places), it does put me off offering.


There is a psycholigcal side of things too which doesn't involve price. Viewing a nicely lit and maintained house, you get a more homely feel and have more happy thoughts - instead of "oh I have to do this, I have to do that" etc.

TBagpuss

I think it is unlikely to affect price but as othes have said, may mean that you get more viewings.

Albala

We have been told over the years that things like decorative order (within reason) and having a nicely kept garden tend to affect how fast a house sells more than the price.

But more recently the advice we've had from an agent we contacted in advance of preparing for a sale is definitely to decorate to modern tastes for neutrals and greys- possibly because this is a small-to-medium family house, and buyers of those don't really want to have to decorate after moving in. Also, a new gloss white kitchen (not my style, but that's what we're doing- selling the house a few months faster will save us more than it will cost).
My general impression is that a higher standard of decoration and more 'on trend' decoration is expected than in the past. If you read the 'look at this' thread on this forum, people are far more critical of decor than they used to be. I think this is because people examine houses minutely room by room on-line, when in the past, they only saw a written particulars list with a Polaroid stuck on it of the outside before viewing, got one quick look inside, and had to make an offer on that basis. Now people are online crawling around rooms for hours, comparing tens if not hundreds of houses, before they even view one.

detomassino

Thank you very much for all your responses.

Waterlily24

Must admit that most of the houses we've bought have been doer uppers because we want to make it to our own taste but there are probably less people around like us.