If your flat is shabby and you want to move...

[SandyBeachandtheDeckchairs]

.... do you do it up beforehand?

We have lived in our London two-bed Victorian garden flat for 14 yrs and in that time have redone kitchen (Ikea) and bathroom both 11yrs ago, and decorated twice. We want to sell next year to relocate to a cheaper area and I'm not sure if we should revamp our flat first or knock some money off the asking price. The people most likely to buy our flat are first-time buyers/ new couples and the area has Ofsted outstanding junior schools, good transport, foodie cafes/markets and a local university.
If we do do up our flat we will have to pay tradesmen to do it, so won't be cheap.
What do you think?

Get a couple of estate agents in and ask them.
Where I am, a really good clean, declutter, and mending anything broken, is plenty, so unless you are going to be selling it absolutely top high end gleaming, I wouldn't bother refurbishing.
Maybe paint the hall or any actually grubby walls tops.

It depends on how good the market is where you are to some extent. I'd be tempted to just touch up some bits that are really looking tired. A good idea can be to get a friend (who you can trust to be brutally honest) to do a 'viewing' on your home and feedback to you if there's anything that really stands out as looking tired / in need of a lick of paint.

I think you need an honest appraisal of the market in your area. If prices have stalled, then you need your flat to look it's best and be reasonably priced if you want to sell. Why look shabby in photos when you don't need to? De clutter, smarten up what you can and make sure potential buyers see the value of your flat above others.

Thanks everyone. We tried to sell last year but the house we were buying fell through. Our buyer didn't try to get any money off our asking price and the survey was fine. It looks clear and neat in the pictures and our wooden floors look great. In the flesh however some windows need retouching/replacing, the kick boards in the kitchen are falling apart and the decking is pretty spongy in places.
The consensus last year was that we should leave it at is was. We won't sell until March next year so it's hard to know what the market will be like then and I don't want to waste the agents time. I guess I'll just have to wait until next year...

Replacing windows is expensive but paint, replacing a bit of rotten decking and the kick boards in the kitchen should be done in my view. It would annoy me enough to look elsewhere if there was a good choice of property available. I think uncared for property is a turn off. Also you move in and immediately have to do work if you don't like a shabby home. However price is a factor and if you price to sell it possibly won't matter to a cash strapped buyer. You can get a bit of the "to do" list done over the winter.

It's a balancing act isn't it - I'll need to see if I can find a good odd job person and give them a to do list.

It's definitely worth dealing with anything which looks like a can of worms- kickboards for instance. You know it's just them but they may sow the seed of doubt in a viewer's mind that the whole kitchen is falling apart, and the same with the spongy bits of decking.