Do I need to change my bathroom to sell my house??

[alison56]

Right so we're thinking of moving next year and I'm wondering what to do to make the house sellable (if anything).

We've lived in our house for 11 years. The first thing we ever did was fully tile the bathroom, though we never installed a new bathroom suite, just an over-bath shower.

The house was extended in 2004 and the older part of the house was totally renovated, with the exception of the bathroom (though we installed a new shower and changed the taps). We installed new windows, fireplace etc and sanded the floors.

Our kitchen is very large, bright and modern with granite worktops - everyone falls in love with it.

Our en-suite is lovely - double shower, large sink, neutral tiles.

Problem is the old bathroom. It's fully tiles in blue and white with a sort of starfish design, white "shell-shaped" suite which is very dated but doesn't look too bad with chrome taps.

I'm just wondering whether to spend a couple of grand on the bathroom or not - if the rest of the house was good, would the dated-ness of the bathroom put you off?

[MyNameIsInigoMontoya]

Think it depends how much work you are talking about. We were advised NOT to re-do our kitchen before selling (even though it's very bad!) because whatever we did might not be in the buyers' taste anyway so it might not convince them/they might prefer to do the work themselves, and we would be unlikely to recoup the money spent. Instead we just sold the house for a bit less, but probably not as much less as the work would have cost us altogether.

So I wouldn't redo the whole room - someone might like it as it is, or otherwise they can change it themselves. But if there are small improvements you can make to smarten it up a bit without spending lots, that is probably worth doing.

[GrendelsMum]

I think if you can get it to look clean, spacious and bright, then that's the main thing. I don't think it would put me off.

[alison56]

yes it's bright and clean. It's just a dated design and a dated style of bathroom suite. Otherwise it looks nice. Could make it look nicer still if I moved the children's toys and stuck some nice Molton Brown stuff on the glass shelf....

[puffylovett]

We;ve just had the same issue alison56. I've redecorated my entire house to a good standard, but we've never got around to the bathroom and it was a dodgy avocado suite with mold everywhere and old paintwork. It looked awful and I was very ashamed of it.

when I got my 3 valuations, I took the time to ask each estate agent their opinion on refurbing the bathroom, and all said don't do it (but replace the hall carpet - first impressions ! it's horrific floral design ). Each EA said most buyers would prefer to offer less and spend the money on a bathroom of their taste.

Instead, what we have done, is remove all evidence of mold, regrout, sanded and repainted everywhere and laid some free vinyl flooring on top of my old white painted floorboards. It looks like a different room - totally presentable now and am hoping that buyers will look at it as a useable bathroom that will eventually need replacing, rather than one that needs doing immediately.

I've also freshened up grotty paintwork in the kitchen, decluttered everwhere and cleaned cleaned cleaned ! I still have some jobs to do but the house is now almost on the market.