Is it worth updating our kitchen?

[fieldfox]

Hello,

DH and I will probably look to move house within about 3-5 years time.

We haven't changed the kitchen since we moved in. It's light, clean and generally OK, but quite dated. I want to save to get a new one, DH thinks it will be a waste of money if we're going to move in a few years. He is sometimes a bit tight and I'm sometimes a bit spendy which may affect our standpoints on this

How much difference would a new kitchen make value wise when we come to sell? This is our first house so we've never sold a property before. Is it worth spending the money to update it or should we save the money and leave it as it is so that buyers can change it if they want?

If it helps, we're in the North West and the house is probably worth £120k ish (decent sized 3 bed semi with a garden).

A new kitchen will probably make any future house sale quicker and should increase the value build am not sure by how much. There is some tough calculation you can do to work out how much it is worth spending on a new kitchen depending on the rough house price. I think it might be 5-10% or something like that.

@Geneticsbunny thank you for replying

I've heard of the percent thing too, but realistically I can't see the house value increasing by 10% if we drop £12k on a kitchen - I just can't see us getting the money back with how the property market is going.

Maybe the middle ground is to put in a fairly cheap but modern (Ikea/Homebase or something) kitchen in so it looks more appealing but doesn't cost a bomb? 🤔

That was what we did. Ikea kitchens are pretty good and I think they have 0% finance at the moment. You can think of it as practice for designing the kitchen at your next house.

If it is reasonable condition, clean, light and the room is well decorated I would not replace it. You will not get anything like your money back and if someone dislikes the new one they will rip it out anyway. Waste of money.

I agree with @lulu we bought a house that had been shoddily updated just to be sold and we wish they hadn't as we've replaced almost everything. We didn't pay the asking price either.

Ds put in a 10k kitchen. Two years later he was selling. The kitchen made the house attractive but didn't raise the value by more than 1k. Three years later he's still paying off the loan for the kitchen of a house he doesn't own.

The original kitchen was solid wood and a paint job would have modernised it.

@Geneticsbunny maybe that's the compromise to go for then! 0% finance sounds handy.

@LuluJakey1 it's not nicely decorated to be honest. It is light thanks to two big windows, I try hard to keep it looking clean and it's a decent size. However... the tiles are pretty ugly, the floor's worn, cupboards look OK but a bit cheap/dated. It's liveable but nobody would look at it and think "ooh lovely kitchen!"

Ah thank you for sharing your experiences @Bobbiepin @LadyB49 - that is exactly what we (DH in particular) are worried about! Urgh this home renovation lark requires much more thought than when we naively bought it at 21

Why not just update it slightly? New taps, new floor. Bleach the grout, paint the walls, replace the handles. Any of those things will help make it look more desirable.

When we moved in to our house the kitchen was awful; it was the original kitchen from when the house was built (20 years or so) and some of the units were broken and the sink leaked, blowing the unit under. We put in a cheap local kitchen and re-tiled for about £4K (didn't replace floor or appliances, except for brand new hob for from eBay). It's a nice, modern kitchen and gets a lot of compliments - you don't have to spend a fortune and I think it will increase saleability if not value.

BTW, we are also in NW, and all the southern MNers are currently weeping at "decent sized three bed for £120k"

@usernamealreadytaken ours isn't that bad thankfully it could really do with a new oven, hob and sink as they're all very dated, but they're working perfectly well.

I wanted to give a bit of perspective on the value of the house so people don't think I'm mental quibbling about whether to spend £10k on a kitchen in a £500k house I do wince when I see southern house prices on here when comparing them to my home town it's crazy how much it varies across the UK!

I was told by an estate agent recently that updating kitchen / bathroom etc would not make more than a very minimal difference to the value of the property, if that, although may help to sell quicker but even then not necessarily.

I wouldn't.

If the cupboard carcasses are ok could you just replace the doors? And put a cheap and cheerful lino down on the floor. It needn’t cost much but could make a big difference.

If your 'few years' is 5 years + then update it if you will get use of it for a few years. If not, then don't bother.

I wouldn't. The money you save will allow you to price more realistically when you come to sell.

Can you post a photo? Maybe we can gauge how bad (or acceptable!) it is and offer some budget fixes

It might be worth spending £3k now if you get this use out of it anyway for 3-5 years? I think you have to make your home lovely for you now; not to sell it in a few years time....

all the southern MNers are currently weeping at "decent sized three bed for £120k"

Yep I’m weeping. Why am I with someone who won’t move North?!?

Back to your question. What is the rest of the house like? In general

Oops. In general it’s worth keeping the house rooms roughly in line. So if everything else is brand new it’s worth considering a new kitchen if someone is going to get a bad impression of the house from the kitchen.
But from what you’ve said the kitchen isn’t bad enough to give you a bad impression on a house.

We asked an estate agent if we should replace windows on our house when we were considering selling and were told not to as they weren’t bad enough. It was the next thing on our list of things to do and we thought they were pretty bad. The agent said we shouldn’t as we’d only get about half the money back, and that was south prices.

I wouldn't bother unless it's something you want to do for yourself.

We were put off houses where a kitchen had obviously been put in recently for selling because either vendors were looking to recoup the cost in the house price and whilst they were ok kitchens they weren't what we wanted so had no value to us.

New cupboard doors on the existing units? Lick of paint on the walls?

I’m another weeping Southerner....

@newmumwithquestions @CatkinToadflax I too was that weeping southerner. I now weep when I look at prices in my home town and the other towns we lived in and loved, and wonder how on earth anyone can afford to live there (M25 belt) :-(

Thank you for all of your responses

DH and I have discussed it again and we think maybe a bit of sprucing up (painting the walls, DH sanding down and varnishing the wooden floor, new cupboard handles, new blinds) might be the best way forward. I'd love to totally redo it but realistically any buyer would probably want to change it again anyway! The point that saving the money we would've spent will allow us to price the house more realistically when we come to sell was a really good one that I hadn't thought of.

I'll get over lusting after kitchens on Pinterest now and will return to ogling my dream house on Rightmove (and whinging to DH that we should move sooner)...A 4 bed detached house in a countryside village with an outstanding primary school on the doorstep 💔 (£235k... sorry to rub it in southerners )

Thank you all again, glad I came on to gather your views!

This sounds like a good decision! I think you would have been unlikely to make back what you would have dropped on this kitchen otherwise, especially with Brexit as a major uncertainty in the housing market in your timeframe. If the plan is to move in the relatively short term, the money is probably best spent on a larger deposit for your next place.