Which home improvements most important to buyers?

[raisinsarenottheonlyfruit]

My house needs more work than I have money for! But we want to sell. So I want to prioritise the improvements that will help sell it / make the most money back.

Which do you reckon are the most attractive to buyers in this list / will add the most value?

Get rid of wood chip in front room, plaster & decorate
Get kitchen up to reasonable standard
Decent flooring
Decent shower (in addition to small bath currently there)
Planning permission to convert loft space (large bedroom with en suite)

Not sure if this is the best example, but this kind of thing is a bit more expensive that ours (because of decent garden).

Note teeny tiny box room bedroom (5'4'' on smallest side), and lack of hallways downstairs.

Wood chip 🍟 n 1 room is easily liveable with for 5 years. How bad is flooring currently? Electric shower over the bath shouldn’t cost too much and will prevent the feedback always being nice house but No shower! Imo it’s a decent good value family home. The best way to maximise saleability is to knock through between kitchen and living room and instal an Ikea kitchen. It will really make the house. If you don’t, everyone will knock money off your asking price, planning to do just that. Total budget under 10 k if you’re careful. Good luck

See that triangle in the front room. I think there's asbestos in there (old fireplace), so that will add to any cost of knocking through, I don't know how much by.

(It was about £1K or was it £2K - I forget - to get rid of the asbestos int the conservatory, but that was easy to get to and remove).

Could you not just leave that wall slightly protruding into the room ie don’t knock out the fireplace?

Having read updates I would say to put a shower in as for most people this is something they will want on day 1. It may not add value as such but a lack of a shower may put people off.
Personally I wouldn’t knock through - we have recently sold and our plan had we stayed would have been to knock through. EA advised against doing it for selling as at the end of the day you have no idea who will buy your house and if they prefer separate rooms or not.

Angryosaurus.

Could do. It would be a a bit weird though. The fireplace isn't actually there anymore, it's not a feature, just a sloping wall, behind which is the chimney stack (which goes diagonally up behind the wall, I assume).

When we moved in there was a gas fire there, we moved it and capped the pipe.

I think if we were going to do it, we'd need to do it properly.

Batteriesallgone that's food for thought! It woukd be soul destroying if we spent months improving it only to discover it hadn't helped much at all!

LadyLance I think you're spot on. Or at least I agree totally with you anyway!

The kind of people who move in here will be first time buyers (or first family home at least) who won't have much money left over.

They'll want something they can live in but may be attracted by the idea of adding value later on.

OK, so good new that loft conversions are permitted anyway.

Think I'll get a couple of quotes as they would be good to show buyers what's possible. I would have liked seeing them when I looked round anyway.

Looks like the rest are all essential if I want to reach the first time buyers.

• remove wood chip in front room, plaster & decorate
• get kitchen to basic decent level
• flooring
• shower

If you want to sell to a family/first time buyer couple, who I agree will pay more than a developer, the house needs to look like they can move in and live there straight away without spending any money.

*At the moment, even if you've done most of the heavy lifting, the house will still feel like a fixer-upper to buyers, and that will put most families off"

Yes I totally agree.

How long are you willing to wait for the right buyer to come along?

Good question.

Ideally I'd like to be moved and in the new place by this summer. That would work best for children starting the new school year etc.

I suspect that's unrealistic however, partly as it may take us a while to find a place at the other end as we'll be at the bottom of the market there, waiting for the property with the compromises we're happy to accept to come on the market, to get the location we want.

If not then by Christmas I guess. I'd rather not wait so long though.

Honestly I wouldn’t bother with flooring.

If I’m envisaging it right, your target is a young couple, looking to get married in the next year or so, and 2-5 years off kids.

Whilst they will care about anything that would prompt horror stories from Parents (woodchip) or anything that would make everyday life difficult (no shower) I can’t see them caring about bare floorboards.

It’s quite cheap to hire a sander and sand back floorboards and varnish them yourself. If you think the floor looks really bad do that. Cheap flooring usually needs to be stuck down and is such a pain in the arse to remove, bare floorboards are better IMO

I’m looking at this sort of home with my mum who wants to downsize and is on her own. She would be put off by too much invasive work.

So she wouldn’t worry about the wood chip and flooring, but these are the cheaper improvements.

An update of the kitchen and bathroom is where I would concentrate my funds but there’s a lot that can be done cheaply. I put a used German kitchen in mine and I’m very pleased.

I don’t think one room of woodchip is ever a deal breaker. With flooring, I might not have read all posts properly but an affordable neutral carpet throughout can mean a massive uplift to a home depending on what is there. It immediately gives a new clean and spacious feel.

I don’t think planning for a conversion is needed but a mention in details that other similar properties have converted is enough.

Just sold my parents' house. Woodchip was no problem at all. Ours is going on the market in the next two weeks. The kitchen definitely needs replacing but we've left it. We've not bought houses because they've had recently fitted kitchens that we couldn't live with and couldn't justify replacing. They're so personal and people actively welcome the opportunity to choose their own.

I'd put in a shower, sand and varnish floorboards- maybe carpet stairs with sisal, clean it within an inch of its life and dress it really nicely. Make the tiny garden look lovely with pots you can take with you.

If I’m envisaging it right, your target is a young couple, looking to get married in the next year or so, and 2-5 years off kids.

Yes, and people with pre-school DC moving to the area with good schools before reception admissions. Our new neighbours recently have all had young DC.