Replace kitchen/bathroom before selling?

[MurderOfProse]

To cut a long story as short as I can without dripfeeding:

Other houses identical to ours are selling locally for £150-£155K. I'm assuming their kitchens/bathrooms are in reasonable condition but realistically I have no idea.

We have a seriously 80s kitchen and bathroom - it came with the house when it was built in the 80s. The kitchen sink has a few holes where you aren't meant to have holes, and some of the drawer fronts are missing. The bathroom is.. avocado and has seen better days. Say no more. With three young DCs we've never managed to find the time/money to sort it before now, but the money part has been resolved at least.

So we have around £12K "spare" (ha ha) to update the bathroom and kitchen.. or we could use this towards a deposit on a new place - we are desperate to move and have only just got out of negative equity due to overpaying the mortgage. There are five of us in a tiny 2 bed London place - DC3 is 10 months and will shortly be joining his two sisters (3 and 5) in the shoebox that is their bedroom. Not ideal.

Which do you think would work out better for us? Will having a crap bathroom and kitchen reduce the sale price of the house by more than £12K? Would spending that money increase the sale price of the house by more than £12K? Or would it work out about the same..

Thanks!! :-)

Ask an estate agent round ans ask their opinion.

It's possibly worth leaving, as people can put their own stamp on, but that might reduce price by 10k, so will have to weigh up.
Don't skimp and put a really really cheap one in, or people will want to redo it anyway.. so no point.. IYSWIM

HTH

It depends on how quick a sell your wanting.
a new bathroom and kitchen will help sell quicker. any mortgage payments after you decide to sell in a way is dead money.
the chances are the kitchen and bathroom may get replaced after selling anyway but that shouldn't be a concern to you.
some people when buying look to do things to the house and others just want to unpack there bags.

That's what I was thinking. Chances are good somebody would just replace it anyway, although given our house is likely to go to first time buyers, they may not be able to afford a new kitchen. That's partly why ours was never sorted!

Years ago my parents sold their house - literally six months earlier my mum got her dream kitchen at last (after a lifetime of living with crappy kitchens) but then dad left her for another woman and the house had to be sold.

The new owner pulled out her expensive new kitchen..! And my mum never had the money again to get a decent one in the new place she moved to ten years ago. Okay so no lives were lost or anything but it was kind of sad!

Very good point over not putting a cheap one in - probably not a good return on the investment at all.

Part of me is tempted by a part exchange with a new home builder - that way the issue of timing for selling wouldn't be an issue, but of course it would be dependent on what they could offer us.

Hmmm... I'd probably do the bathroom but not the kitchen. Bathroom can be done a lot more cheaply (£2-3k) and still look good, and then a buyer will think there is only one thing to do not 2 iyswim.

Can you patch up the kitchen eg get replacement drawer fronts (or is it way too old)? And give the rest of the house a good clean and redecorate so that it looks like it's just the kitchen that needs attention and the rest is "done"?

I think I would also do the bathroom and not the kitchen as I think many people are fussy/specific about kitchen style and but fewer are worried about bathroom style, they just want somewhere clean and pleasant to wash.

You could put in a decent bathroom for 3-4K and I think this would make your home much more appealing.

Re the kitchen, I would replace the sink and get new drawer fronts, there are companies out there who replace unit doors etc who could help.

That's a very good point about the bathroom. People are less likely to alter a bathroom too.

The kitchen probably is too old to be salvageable, it's hard to say. It would look a lot better with newer drawerfronts etc and maybe a sink though. How much does that generally cost, out of interest?

Ideally we do need to redecorate in every room in the house but in practical terms it's impossible because we're so cramped. There's nowhere to put stuff when redecorating (not even enough room to pull stuff away from the walls and cover it) and we have no friends/family nearby to stay with if needs be either. Then there's the whole issue of if you do one room, you should really do them all because it won't make a great deal of difference if you do just the one.. argh!

Opinions differ.

I agree it is not worth putting in a £10,000 kitchen as the new buyer (if prosperous) will rip it all out and put in a new one of their own taste, or (if not prosperous) will not value it at £10,000.

But I feel it is worth making your house look quite nice, so a horrible bathroom or kitchen need to be renovated to look modern, clean and without conspicuus fault. A new bathroom suite of adequate quality can be bought for a few hundred pounds, and a plumber can fit it in two days. I would be tempted to go for painted plaster walls rather than the expense of tiling, and a simple vinyl floor laid on ply.

An economical kitchen installed by a skilled joiner can look fine. You don't have to go for granite or walnut worktops.

Pannacotta - you took the words out of my mouth!! X-posted!!

Thanks everyone - you're pretty much not saying anything that's a huge surprise, so it's good to know :)

You could replace the sink and drawer front for a few hundred quid. Look up local companies who do kitchen facelifts unless you know where the kitchen came from and can find new drawer fronts yourself?

Good advice from PigletJohn re the bathroom, if coudl be done really quite cheaply if you limit tiling and get a cheap suite - do get a shower though even if its over the bath.

And yes a new kitchen is possible on the cheap, I would go to IKEA and get plain units in that case. But it is hassle for you.

Second the advice to get local agents round for their suggestions.

We bought a house with the same problems as you describe we bought for 20percent less than the asking price we were their only offer in 9 months on the market in 2006 when just about anything sold around here. I second getting an estate agent in and asking for the blunt no frills truth.

the easiest way to look at it is that if you think your flat will be best for 1st time buyers then 1st timers will prob not be able to get any additional funds to do any extra work after taking out a mortgage, even if they offer you under the asking.
so just weigh up the speed you want to sell and if you want the asking price.
As if we looked at a place that needed work we would over estimate the value of work and put our offer in to reflect it.

sure a touch up would be fine all round so its all fresh and clean looking

see i could live with the bathroom but would like the kitchen to look tidy so draw fronts on etc .As would know in my own mind that its cheaper/easier to redo the bathroom than a kitchen

Could you put in some freestanding units and take them with you if the buyer doesn't like them?

Ikea do this very reasonably.

Thanks everyone - very good advice and always good to get differing opinions. Great point about the tiling in the bathroom. This is one of the big issues we have as the bathroom is non-standard in sizing, so we'd need to retile (or just paint) whatever happens if we replace any of the units.

Definitely would need to at least freshen the place up a bit, that's a given no matter what we decide to do. There's lots of odd little jobs like repainting the barge boards, getting the gutters cleaned, pulling down the half broken "greenhouse"-style conservatory attached to the house (not to mention the masses of decluttering) that need doing on top of potential redecorating and replacing bathrooms/kitchens. With three DC aged 5 and under, and I run a business from home and DH works full time, we have to prioritise somehow. Doing a quick job on the kitchen appeals to me on that level

Good idea about the estate agent - perhaps they could help us prioritise a bit too, as well as point out all the obvious flaws!!

I echo doing a good job in the bathroom, it will be easier to sell, and get the money back.