Or is dh over getting house ready to sell?

[Shitpipe]

Recently found out our extension won't be happening. So we need to move.

House is 1970s semi in popular area. It's a ftb house. We were ftb 15 years ago. Valued at 145.

To get ready to sell dh wants to:
Do new kitchen
New boiler
Laminate floor throughout whole house
Paint all rooms
Get rid of built in bookshelves
New wardrobe doors in our bedroom
Wallpaper hall and landing to hide the plaster crack

I accept new kitchen/boiler. Kitchen is no longer fit for purpose.
I think carpets could have a deep clean. Although they're a bit tufty where cats have had a go.
Agree with paint.

I think he's being over the top. H

When we sold our first house, which sounds a bit smaller and slightly cheaper than yours, the EA advised not to spend too much on it. It sold very quickly even with a 20 year old kitchen. I think painting, cleaning, brightening and decluttering is a good plan though. If the kitchen is seriously bad and likely to put people off then OK do it. But having work done is a royal PITA and you may need to do a load of work to your new property.

My current boiler is 24 years old. It’s had it now so we are getting a new one. But if yours works and is serviced/safe, then don’t replace.

The amount of money your dh is thinking of spending is unlikely to be made back on the increased sale price, for a property of that value.

And don’t let him laminate the place!!
That will put people off.

How does his sex make him an expert?

That's the point, Lamie - it doesn't. But he's a Bloke, and blokes Know About Things . . .

If DH is so desperate to tart up then why hasn't he done it before now?
Don't do it, it's a waste of money and will delay your sale. Easter is usually prime viewing time so carpe diem.

I suggest a compromise: that he is allowed to tart up ... your new house.

And to add another anecdote from a house we viewed only 3 weeks ago- it went on the market at a high end price for the road due to its swanky new kitchen that they'd just had installed. Again, kitchen wasn't to our taste but it was nicely done so we thought we could tolerate it. However the effect of the kitchen being so shiny and new is that it then did a great job of highlighting how dated and comparitively unloved the rest of the house felt 🤦🏻‍♀️ The vendors and agents were so convinced it would sell that they did one day of 15 minute viewings back to back and said they'd only consider one best and final offer per viewing, to be submitted by midday the next day. Fast forward 48 hours and I got a rather sheepish call from the agent saying they'd had no offers after 17 viewings so wanted to get some feedback and ask what we would have been willing to pay. They subsequently reduced asking price by £25k after just 2 days on the market and it's still not sold.

Have you started looking at places to buy? Maybe if DH starts to look at this with his buyer's head on, instead of a seller's head, then the penny might drop.

Whatever new kitchen you might put in, it almost certainly won’t be what someone else would have chosen. That’s why so many people rip out perfectly good kitchens that may be only a few years old.

If your kitchen is perfectly functional and clean, I’d leave it.

What’s this about ripping out bookshelves?? Is it because books are seen as ‘clutter’ - as I’ve seen them described on here?
Honestly, it’s enough to make anyone despair.

A new kitchen that wasn't to my taste would actually put me off buying as I couldn't bear to waste a new kitchen. I'd rather just factor in the cost of ripping out an old one.

Estate agent will answer your question.
If you are in a market where anything sells, just bung it on the market and see what happens.
Get a plasterer to come and sort out the wall.
Give it a clean.
Get rid of clutter.
Buy a new kitchen for the new house!

replace the kitchen with a fitted ikea kitchen, the kitchen is usually the selling point.
On both her last houses my sil upped her price & sold for 30K more, by doing this & repainting.
No point in ripping out bookcase, or laminate floors, the new owners can do that if they desire.

And when we sold our last house, we followed the advice to spend 1 per cent of the value in getting it ready.
In our case the house was worth 450, and we spent 4k on having the drive done with the neighbours, it was knackered and shared so it made huge sense both in terms of the sale and for the neighbours.
If you want to look at it like that, put aside 1400.

First time buyer here! Just in the process of buying a house for £130k, the kitchen is ancient, damaged and hideous, and won't fit our dining table or all our white goods in as is, but is functional and doesn't bother me at all because we can afford to buy a new kitchen fairly soon. The seller has put grey laminate in everywhere and painted every room grey, and I wish they hadn't bothered tbh, laminate isn't my thing and nor is grey but because it is new I can't in good conscience rip it out and replace it. Whereas with the kitchen we can. We are painting everywhere the day we get the keys.

We were offered a mortgage up to 240k but went with a cheaper property because of time constraints of saving for a bigger deposit, so don't assume all first time buyers buying budget houses won't be able to afford getting work done.

There are always downsizers and people wanting retirement properties too to free up equity who won't mind replacing everything how they want it. It's totally worth listing as is, and then trying a different tactic if it doesn't work. Is he being too proud and embarrassed maybe that people he knows will be nosy and judge it as it is if they see the listing?

There are loads of free boiler schemes at the moment, one you can get if you receive child benefit. I'd maybe look at seeing if you are entitled to one of those schemes.

XH tried to convince me that we needed to landscape the garden before we could sell. I did the multiple estate agents' views thing and no-one recommended it, to my huge not-surprise. But then XH definitely didn't want to move.

I think his intentions are good and I'd have loved to have had a husband like that back in the day when mine just left me to do all that stuff.

Be careful of big expenses like the kitchen, though. Someone else might have completely different plans for it.

Most people when they look around a house to buy are thinking about how they will put their own stamp on it all, rather than admiring what's already there.

I spent 10K (!!!!!!!!! not intentionally -- things kept going wrong) on a new bathroom, then sold the house a year later to someone who loved the house but ripped out the bathroom straight away

A lick of paint is always worth doing.

Maybe he's doing all this and hoping you'll love the improvements and not want to move

Has he been watching Love It or List It? Is he hoping that once it's spruced up you won't want to move anymore? Add up how much you'd be spending on the refurb and knock it off the price (or be prepared to knock it off the price - you might not even have to) then have a good clean and declutter so it looks as spacious and light as possible.
Our neighbour he spent ages getting it ready for sale - repainting all the rooms, new skirting boards to replace battered ones, getting a gardener in to trim all the trees and bushes. New people arrived and they have totally gutted the house - we had the same here. Months of work before the sale and the new people literally pulled it apart.

^Today 09:08 Hollyhead
A new kitchen that wasn't to my taste would actually put me off buying as I couldn't bear to waste a new kitchen. I'd rather just factor in the cost of ripping out an old one.^

This. 100%

Whenever we’ve looked I’ve always discounted ones with brand new kitchens as they’re rarely what I like but I couldn’t justify ripping it out

P.S. I would say that your husband has probably been looking around the house for years thinking these things need doing, and putting them off because there have been other priorities, and now that the house is going to be sold he feels it's important to get them all done so as to maximise your chances of selling at a good price.

Reassuring him that he needn't bust a gut to get it all done suddenly might require the input of an estate agent re: what will actually impact sales.

It's a lot of work. By the time you have done it it will all need doing again!

Seriously though - you're looking at 4k, 6 months and a load of hassle. Will you get significantly more than that if you do the work?

It isn't just about how much extra you could get though.

How is the market in your area? Are 'doer uppers' languishing overpriced on Rightmove or shifting quickly? It isn't just about the extra money. Some people want to buy a fully renovated house so if you do need to shift in a stagnant market then it could be worth doing the work as otherwise you'll be browbeaten into selling low by developers.

An honest estate agent will be able to tell you this. Or you could keep an eye on Rightmove daily to see what comes up and goes STC within a few days/weeks. The patterns should be fairly obvious.

Get the estate agent in and listen to their advice.

Kitchens and boilers ain't free - you're looking at 10k AND time AND effort AND hassle. You'd need to be sure you'd get that back. Although I'd paint and paper over the cracks.

Also unless you want to do the work yourself you will wait aaaaaagggggeeeees for tradespeople. They are chocka just now. If that means missing the stamp duty holiday then it's madness.

Just do enough to make it sellable. Freshen up the paintwork - quite often a good scrub will do the trick! Especially on High touch areas and doors.

If the carpet really is grim then replace it with a neutral colour.

De clutter and focus on addressing and negative points about the house.

Do not spend loads of money on a new kitchen. You’ll no doubt expect top ££ but it doesn’t work like that.

We’ve viewed about 10 houses in the last two weeks. Some of the places needed a good scrub and carpet replacing throughout. One had a brand new kitchen that was awful and we would have replaced it. The good ones dressed it for sale, all rooms were shown off to their best.

I second how busy trades are at the moment.

It’s taken us four and a half months to get central heating into our new house from accepting the estimate to the final radiator going in.

Sounds like an awful lot of stress and hassle and can't imagine you'll get your money back so you'd maybe lose money too??

I would look around and see what basics you need to do to freshen it up a bit. A lick of paint in a few rooms? New carpet? Fix anything that might be broken. I wouldn't be doing any more than that.

When I sold my house, I cleaned and tidied, but made it clear to prospective buyers that I saw no point in doing the house up to my taste. It could even be off-putting if prospective buyers felt that they were lumbered with something that had just been done, just because it was new. I made the point that the building was structurally sound (survey bore this out!) but the decor was tired and dated, and the selling price reflected the fact the buyers would need to modernise to their taste, as 30PercentRecycled says.
If you fix the house so that nothing needs doing, ready to move in, you will attract a different sort of purchaser; nothing wrong with that, but how can you guess their taste?