Selling House - How much work would you do?

eddddy

I guess it depends a lot on your target market. As others say, see what the EAs say.

Maybe you're not thinking about big jobs like replacing kitchens and bathrooms, but fwiw, this is what EA suggested to me about typical family homes:

• Don't do anything to the kitchen. You won't get your money back. The buyers might not like what you've done. Buyers get excited about properties that need new kitchens, because they like the idea of choosing the precise kitchen they want.

• Spend money on the bathroom. The wife/mother of the buying family will not like the thought of having to use a "nasty bathroom" - so make the bathroom as nice as possible. The EA suggested that wives sometimes veto an otherwise ideal house, simply because the bathroom is nasty.

Octothorpe

Remember the EA will just want to get the house on their books asap.

We had a aesthetic hairline crack on an inside wall - EA said not to bother filling/painting it.

Guess what? FTBs were nervous about it!! So we paid to have it filled and repainted, problem solved!!

I'd say just spend on obvious maintenance issues - mouldy grout/sealant,  leaky taps, broken cupboards etc

Philomel

eddddy said:

• Spend money on the bathroom. The wife/mother of the buying family will not like the thought of having to use a "nasty bathroom" - so make the bathroom as nice as possible. The EA suggested that wives sometimes veto an otherwise ideal house, simply because the bathroom is nasty.

what a weirdly gendered take...! only women care about cleanliness i guess?!

jackieblack

StandingInTheSun said:

There was a house went up for sale in an area we were interested in recently. It was old and in need of modernisation (the owner had died and his son was selling it) - that's OK and not out of the norm.

But the dirt and the smell...I've never seen anything as disgusting in a house before. Cobwebs, dead animals, damp and mould. I asked the estate agent how on earth they were happy to show people around it and they agreed that the owner should have had the place deep cleaned. But they apparently just didn't care.

That house is STILL available in an area with a ridiculously hot market. 

Dead animals!?

eddddy

Philomel said:

eddddy said:

• Spend money on the bathroom. The wife/mother of the buying family will not like the thought of having to use a "nasty bathroom" - so make the bathroom as nice as possible. The EA suggested that wives sometimes veto an otherwise ideal house, simply because the bathroom is nasty.

what a weirdly gendered take...! only women care about cleanliness i guess?!

Yep - as you suggest, it was probably more insulting to the husbands than anything else.

Redwino222

eddddy said:

I guess it depends a lot on your target market. As others say, see what the EAs say.

Maybe you're not thinking about big jobs like replacing kitchens and bathrooms, but fwiw, this is what EA suggested to me about typical family homes:

• Don't do anything to the kitchen. You won't get your money back. The buyers might not like what you've done. Buyers get excited about properties that need new kitchens, because they like the idea of choosing the precise kitchen they want.

• Spend money on the bathroom. The wife/mother of the buying family will not like the thought of having to use a "nasty bathroom" - so make the bathroom as nice as possible. The EA suggested that wives sometimes veto an otherwise ideal house, simply because the bathroom is nasty.

When I was a first time buyer there is no way I could afford to replace a kitchen.

When I was selling spent a few hundred quid replacing my old fashioned wooden kitchen country style doors with something neutral, slick and modern.  I also replaced the tap.  

It really worked in my market.  

More expensive house, yes buyers will want to design their own kitchen (that’s what I will be doing) but assuming all buyers want to spend money in a new kitchen seems a ponds generalisation.

greensalad

I think clean, tidy, and decluttered is really important. But I wouldn't do "work" beyond that. 

I'm quite a good visualiser so I don't generally have a problem looking past vendors ugly faux plants and school portraits on the walls... but I do find it irritating having to sneak peeks behind things to see the bones of the house. For example, a recent property I viewed had placed a large faux flower (well it looked like it'd been there for ages based on the cobwebs) in front of the fireplace. I don't think it was maliciously placed to hide anything (based on aforementioned cobwebs) but it's just annoying. I want to see what I'm buying.

My partner on the other hand has much less vision. I noticed a stark difference between how he felt about very decluttered houses & cluttered ones. He definitely got that "not for me" sense about houses straight away and I then had to bring him round to looking beyond the clutter.

Personally, I'd rent a storage unit or just start boxing crap up in the garage if you've got one, and get rid of virtually everything you can live without until it sells. 

lumencreative

Thanks for all the replies. Decluttering definitely sounds like a must do. We are fortunate to own our own business that rents a 3,000sqft warehouse so it’s not an issue to remove crap. We also had a skip delivered on Thursday so will be throwing a lot of stuff out.

Drawingaline

I repainted all the bedrooms during lockdown one, when we were talking about the possibility of moving, but not 100% sure we would. They needed doing and I had ALL the time! 

When we decided to market I added some tubs of flowers to the front garden and tidied it up, had the conservatory and gutters etc washed and then just cleaned and tidied. 

StandingInTheSun

jackieblack said:

StandingInTheSun said:

There was a house went up for sale in an area we were interested in recently. It was old and in need of modernisation (the owner had died and his son was selling it) - that's OK and not out of the norm.

But the dirt and the smell...I've never seen anything as disgusting in a house before. Cobwebs, dead animals, damp and mould. I asked the estate agent how on earth they were happy to show people around it and they agreed that the owner should have had the place deep cleaned. But they apparently just didn't care.

That house is STILL available in an area with a ridiculously hot market. 

Dead animals!?

Place had been let go so much that mice had found their way in at some point. Hundreds of dead insects in the roof space as well.