Decorating before selling - worth it?

Doozergirl

I really don't think it hurts.

There's certainly more of chance of thinking "I wish I had done that" than "I'm sorry I did".

Fact is, it's also just nice for people to move into something that has been cared for and doesn't feel grotty immediately.

What isn't nice is just slapping white paint around with no care, causing people more work. If you're going to do it, do it well. I viewed a house recently where someone had painted the stairs in emulsion. That's going to undermine anything that goes on top of it.

We've just freshened ours all up in the existing colours and made the silly repairs we should have enjoyed ourselves(!), presented things a little differently and made a couple of the bedrooms more grown up.

Grenage

We tarted ours up to sell; repainted each room and put down some cheap new carpet.


It got us no more money for the house, but it made it very quick to sell.

oystercatcher

I'm thinking shared ownership might give you buyers with a tight budget and not able to afford to change things at first so I would make sure everywhere is liveable with so clean and tidy and usable but maybe bland or slightly old fashioned is OK so they feel they could move in and save up without things looking terrible.

Certainly not worth spending a lot of money though as people's tastes vary so much. I've seen many recently renovated places that look terrible to me and I certainly wouldn't pay extra for the latest trendy stuff.