Selling House - How much work would you do?

youth_leader

I forgot I had the gutters cleaned out too at a whopping cost of £140 - plus I had the boiler serviced for £150.  I spent far too much, decluttering and cleaning are all you need to do.

Caramac

We had the fitted oven professionally cleaned, all the UPVC windows, soffits, guttering and conservatory cleaned and bought new toilet seats.  I touched up paintwork but that was about it except for decluttering and emptying worktops, and other surfaces.

Carrot007

youth_leader said:

I had three rooms redecorated in a neutral colour for £380, as well as some cracks filled.

£50 DIY.

youth_leader said:

Unfortunately the dripping tap in the kitchen became worse and I had that replaced for £250 for a new tap and fitting.

You put up qwith a tap that you knew was dripping? Selling it anyway? £30 ebay. Fit tap yourself.

Etc Etc.

bolwin1

We decided to sell the house in early 2020, but for various reasons couldn't put it on the market for a few months. As this was in the middle of the first lockdown, I used the opportunity to redecorate 80% of the house. It was just cosmetic stuff, mostly re-painting walls /  ceilings etc. but did make a big difference. Also did a really deep clean all over the house. It didn't cost much, other than a lot of effort. Also decluttered, gave a lot of stuff away & put loads in storage. I think it helped get offers fairly quickly, but will never know if it would have gone quickly without the work done.

MovingForwards

Declutter, move stuff to storage to give the illusion of space and clean everywhere. Some buyers do not have the imagination to see past sellers possessions and visualise their own in it.

Freshly painted property would have me wondering what's been hidden under it. 

Make sure the EA photos show how good your property actually is and have floor plans / room sizes up in the listing, they can make a lot more sense than photos sometimes.

Viewing the property I purchased, there was oversized furniture everywhere, making the rooms seem very small, the photos were dreadful and missed a lot of positive features eg storage and no photo of the private garden which came with the flat.

I ripped up a perfectly viable, plenty of life lounge carpet not long after moving in because it made the room seem a lot smaller and dark. I've got nearly a full wall of windows and instantly the room was bigger and brighter.  Painstakingly sanding and painting all the mahogany wood (varnish) has made the room feel even bigger; it was a good size on paper. 

When looking for my first home, I didn't rule properties out based on the age of things, as I wanted one I could make my own and within my budget.

Greymug

Decluttering is key, it makes the rooms look so much bigger.

In my property I also
- painted 3 rooms (walls were dirty and tired)
- changed a towel radiator to a nice looking (although cheap) new one
- hung pictures on the walls (didn't have anything on the walls for about 5 years)
- bought a couple of plants and a vase with flowers
- bought some crisp white bedding, which I normally would not use, but looked nice in the room

So basically just little touches to find the balance between making the property look lived in but still in pristine conditions

TBagpuss

I think it does depend a bit on the house and the market - 
I think the key things are to ensure that the house is clean and decluttered, and then beyond that, think about what will add value.

Last time I sold a house (which was a small 'start home type property) I had a very frank conversation with the agents, where I explicitly said to them that I was very aware that the kitchen and bathroom were dated, and asked explicitly asked what difference it would make to the selling price if I made changes, and whether they would recommend it. 

Their advice was not to do the work  and to price it accordingly (broadly speaking, the numbers they talked about in terms of the price difference were similar to what it would have cost me to to the work, assuming it didn't go over budget, and the agents view was that particularly due to the type of property, it was unlikely to make much difference to salability as while it might put off some possible buyers, equally getting it a bit cheaper and then doing what was effectively cosmetic work would appeal to some buyers on a budget! 

I think with a larger, more expensive house it might make more difference but I think it's worth talking to the agents - what I found was that they wouldn't bring up this issues, but once I did, and said I knew that x or y was a potential issue, they were happy to discuss and advise.
I also made sure that the photos were accurate and included photos of the bathroom, as it seemed to me that if it was going to put people off, they might as well be put off at the first step, rather than after viewing!  (interesting, it was sold again recently, and looking at the photos, the buyers had updated the bathroom but other than new vinyl, don't seem to have done anything to the kitchen! )

It all seemed to work - I got an asking price offer pretty quickly, and although that fell through because the buyer was an idiot, I then got another offer at full asking price the day it went back on the market.

I do think f you have any very unseal features - walls painted in bright primary colours, children's rooms with stickers all over the walls or the child's name painted on walls that it would be a good idea to change those things, and perhaps paint over in a neutral colour, but other wise, go for dressing it to be appealing - cut down on very personal stuff to make it easier for a vieer to imagine their own things there, clean the windows and doors, have a vase of flowers or a bowl of fresh fruit on the table and some flowers in the garden so it looks cared for.

GixerKate

Declutter and clean is a must.  When we sold our house the EA said not to bother spending money doing it up and we did get an offer but it wasn't as much as we hoped.  When it fell through we then ignored the EA and used the lockdown to paint the kitchen, bathroom and the main bedroom as they were pretty tired.  As soon as lockdown was lifted enough we then had a few viewings followed immediately by three offers competing nicely and we got the asking price, I honestly believe slapping the paint around really helped.

kbcorbs

Hire a skip and bin everything in the interior. I'd suggest acting like you want to get your deposit back and it's a rental. It's the right thing to do.