Advice please on selling DF's house

[Gingerpoppy]

Very elderly father is about to go into residential care, he's 92 and has lived independently up until now on his own but is just unable to cope anymore.

His house is big and barely been touched for over 45 years. He's not got rid of a thing and maintenance has been minimal at best. I suppose what I'm asking help for is how 'good' do we make the house before selling it? The whole lot will be ripped out by the new owner, bathrooms, kitchen, carpets etc all will go. There's a hole in a bedroom ceiling which is full of damp, I fear we will unearth a whole load of issues if we start digging about up there. Are we better off just putting it up for auction or should we try the market first?

Is it best to clear out absolutely everything, including the old carpets or leave them down? Presumably no one wants to see his furniture in situ?

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

Probably get it cleared - a house clearance man with van will make short work of it.
I’d try the market before auction - is it in a desirable area?

Probably leave the carpets in though - give them a good vacuum.

Not crossed that bridge yet. Maybe a house clearance and flick the hoover round. PILs house will be bought by a builder/ have a go hero developer so there’s no point decorating and getting new carpet.

Very desirable area yes

House clearance to get it cleared. Don't try and sort it yourself. You can ask them to keep back anything like paperwork or photographs to go through yourself. The one we used would sell anything valuable at auction, take commission, then hand the rest over, plus recycle/charity shop what they could. But they're experts, do it really fast and aren't emotionally connected to it.

Better to sell as is, don't try and hide any problems but price sensibly, bearing in mind that renovation work is expensive at the moment. I've bought a house like this in the past and it was a fantastic opportunity to make it just as we wanted it, turning it back into the lovely family home it had been once.

Good luck!

We were told not to clear out all the furniture from my mother’s house but to cut it by about a third in each room and declutter and remove personal objects. Viewers like to see how the rooms could be used and beds are useful for showing size.

I tried to make it look less ‘elderly’ by removing ornaments and displaying more age-neutral glassware and pieces of pottery.

I recently sold my late sister's north London, two bed garden flat as executor. She'd lived there for nearly 30 years and done nothing to it, so it was sold as a do-er upper. Loads of potential.
The advice from the estate agent was similar to @Abra1t - clear the personal clutter, but leave enough furniture to show what the rooms could accommodate.

Clear the old carpets it will look more spacious and clean

I also bought (eBay secondhand/seconds good quality) White Company bedding, and folded bright throws and quilts on the bed ends to make it look more contemporary, and stashed some empty White Company/Jo Malone handwash in the bathrooms, along with white towels bought in White Company sale.

Plus some white silk hydrangeas (so wouldn’t die as I live 75 miles away) bought from Etsy for £15.

None of this cost much and I will use some of the bedding and towels myself later.
But it seemed to lift the place.

We still have some hardy plants there as well and the Christmas cactus did its thing over the season.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/shop/donating-goods/house-clearance

Clear the house first & do any repairs and then get an valuation from 3 estate agents.

Choose the middle of the three valuations and put it up for sale in the open market. This gives you room to drop the price later if required.

The house should be marketed as a doer upper and shouldn't phase people wanting to put their own mark on a house. I'd rather buy a reno project than pay premium for someone else's taste which might not work for me.

I'm buying a similar property which was previously owned by a lady for 35 years. It requires updating but this doesn't phase ne at all.

Thank you so much everyone some great tips here.

When you say repairs, how far do you go? Do we bother fixing the damp ceiling patch or just leave it? Take very honest pictures presumably so that we don't waste anyone's time including ours.

I'd fix the damp ceiling patch because you don't want it to deteriorate further & cause more damage which would be expensive to fix. Plus, the buyers can use it to push for a much larger reduction in price than you're prepared to accept.

In general, updates increase the speed at which a house sells but don't increase the value by more than the renovation cost. But it will vary by house and area, so get some estate agents round to value it and ask them what they think.

I'd fix anything that could cause further deterioration eg hole in roof, leaking gutters. Or that is dangerous. Bearing in mind it can take months to get to completion so you don't want to risk the house getting a lot worse.

Two examples : When we sold my parents house , it had artex on the ceilings , a late 1970s kitchen , years of painted on textured wallpaper , a blue coloured bathroom suite ,, and separate , in a tiny room blue w.c .
It sold .

A few years previously , sold our home to move to another area .
We had modernised it to a high standard , both the bathroom and kitchen were immaculate .
New buyers kept the kitchen but the bathroom they ripped out and changed to suit their taste .

Personally I'd save yourself the hassle and sell as is . Just make it non cluttered , clean & tidy .

@Gingerpoppy just did this in very similar circumstances.

Talk to lots of Estate Agents and ask if they work with builders/investment buyers.

Then treasure hunt for what you want and get clearance in.

We didn’t do any repairs, just cleared as much as possible. There were 2 ceilings down and mould, artex and wood chip wallpaper. Builder was literally looking for places to strip back and had done several similar projects.

Edited to add - the right Estate Agent sold it for us ‘off market’ and reduced the fee as no marketing needed. We did need to do the Energy Performance Certificate.

I would clear it.

Put a sign up in garden:
House for sale - open for viewings
10 am - 2 pm
Saturday, Date and Sunday, date

I'd do this rather than pay absolutely thousands to an estate agent

Great advice here, thanks so much. Could anyone advise any other obvious things i.e do we need to tell insurance company or if we stay down there once a month is it ok not to? We'll be down there frequently to clear it etc

It's in a very secluded little private area of just 6 houses unfortunately so no passers by

@Gingerpoppy you must speak to insurers if the house is unoccupied even if you visit- they may continue the policy subject to conditions eg heating left on. We had to get specialist insurers when it was empty.- towergate i think.after the original policy ended as they would not renew.

also speak to council re council tax- you should get a break from it.

Speak to your insurer. There are conditions attached to having an empty property and the normal insurer might refuse to continue insuring. We used Towergate for empty house insurance - that required someone to visit weekly to check all was ok.

If you're not local you can put it on a management contract with the estate agent (slight higher % charge) and they will do the checks, pick up post etc, keep a log of visits and who has been when.

Can you get a surveyor to do an independent report on it? Is there such a thing, or do they just work for lenders?

I definitely feel the 'worst house in the best street' logic applies here. As long as there aren't shockingly difficult issues to resolve, it should sell OK. It's definitely a seller's market, we have my mother's house up for sale right now and it is a bit like your dad's, ie v dated and poorly maintained, and have had 17 viewings booked and an offer in 2 days, though some of the feedback has been fairly insulting!

You can commission a surveyor yourself. We've always done this when buying as wanted a more detailed survey than the mortgage company would do.

I'd clear out all the possessions and leave it with basic furnishings and sell it as is - talk to a few estate agents about value and saleability, but also think about an auction.

I wouldn't bother doing any repairs, staging or otherwise preparation for sale because it sounds like a total refurb job so the buyer will probably replace the ceiling anyway. Plus if the roof is leaking then until that's fixed, it's likely that the damp will return so pointless repairing the damp patches.

We had exactly this with my parents house. I got a clearance company to clear it out, cleaners in to very thoroughly clea it, a gardener mowed the lawn and city back the overgrown garden but did nothing re damp, poor decor, a broken boiler. Obviously that was reflected in the price but better to reduce price than manage the work.