Sell as is or renovate, then sell ?

[Pleasedontdothat]

We’ve lived in our Edwardian semi-detached house in southwest London for nearly 20 years and we’re thinking of our next steps now all our children are done with education.

We had quite a bit of work done soon after we moved in - loft conversion and kitchen extension but apart from putting in a new bathroom a few years ago and a bit of painting, we’ve only done essential maintenance and everything’s looking a bit tired.

To get it up to the standard of the near-identical house a few doors down from us which is (optimistically?) on for £1.1 million I think we’d probably have to redecorate the whole house (apart from a couple of rooms and the exterior), redo the kitchen/dining room including flooring, new stair carpet, redo the bathroom in the loft and probably some more bits of maintenance which would become apparent as we went on.

How much would all that cost? And would we have any chance of recouping it? Or would we be better off decluttering and otherwise leaving it as it is and accepting that it’s not going to go for as much as some of the other houses on our road?

The usual wisdom is to tidy up, repair and declutter but don't bother renovating as you won't get the cost back, renovation is always more expensive and time-consuming than you think, and people might not like what you've done anyway. We'll be in a similar position in about 5 years, and I am saving my renovation energies for the house we'll be moving to.

I think we’d probably have to redecorate the whole house (apart from a couple of rooms and the exterior), redo the kitchen/dining room including flooring, new stair carpet, redo the bathroom in the loft and probably some more bits of maintenance
Are you working on the assumption that you can (a) do this at a reasonable price and (b) actually find the tradespeople to do it!?
it's being so cheerful that keeps me going.

Honestly I’d probably repaint some rooms if you can do them yourself and replace the stair carpet with a neutral one as first impressions count. I’d not do flooring, kitchen etc, not the big jobs.

How much depends on how much you can do yourself. I could paint my whole house apart from kitchen and hall (due to height) and it would cost say fifty quid a room, but to employ someone to do it will be several times that price.

Unless you are someone who actively enjoys redecorating and renovations or you have the time, skills and inclination to do a lot of the work yourselves then I agree with @Thecazelets

When you say re-do kitchen and loft bathroom what do you mean? Completely new units tiles and worktop, or clean tiles, paint walls?

If the former, then you'd need to spend a lot as you're looking to invest in a £1m+ asset. £30k plus minimum I'd say. Plus the same again easily redecorating and recarpeting.

So would £60k of investment be realised in sale price?

If not don't bother. But declutter and clean throughly, including carpets.

Sell as is, definitely

Also depends on your timescale, you have to plan way ahead to do a renovation, trades are so booked up.
I’d probably just sell it as is, have a good declutter, tidy and clean and make sure you have all your paperwork from previous work in place.
You will get less money, but why do up a house you don’t want to live in, it’s a lot of work and disruption and you will have to budget carefully and may end up doing something not to everyone’s taste.
Someone will want to buy it and do it up to their own style, they won’t mind it needing work if the price is right.

@Thecazelets

The usual wisdom is to tidy up, repair and declutter but don't bother renovating as you won't get the cost back, renovation is always more expensive and time-consuming than you think, and people might not like what you've done anyway. We'll be in a similar position in about 5 years, and I am saving my renovation energies for the house we'll be moving to.

A couple of years ago now we were selling. We got a decent EA round to advise us, because we thought it might be worth doing stuff, and wanted to know what was worth doing in our area, and how we should do it.

She valued it as it was, and advised us on what was worth doing to increase that, even down to what colours to choose (not the ones I would have chosen at all), and which rooms to declutter, which to leave empty. We did exactly as she told us, repainted, fitted (ourselves) a new kitchen, and recarpeted some of the rooms. I was amazed at the difference it made, and she was spot-on about the colours, right on trend, as they say. We then got her back to revalue. She was delighted at the change, upped it considerably, we decided to ask 5 thousand more to see what happened and had two asking price offers in the first week from the first three views, one of which we accepted, and it sold to them at that price. This was before the recent house buying madness, BTW. Because we were able to do it all ourselves, we made well over twice what we spent on it, and our buyers got a nice fresh newly decorated house. We can now spend the money we made on work on our new house that we can't do ourselves.
I'd suggest finding a good EA and then asking them for their advice. They know the market, they can stop you wasting money, and they know what current trends are in their area.

To be fair though, The fact you’ve not done anything to the house in two decades maybe indicates you’re not really great at diy, or you’d have been maintaining decorating etc, as such, give it a good scrub, de clutter and accept it will of course be worth a lot less than a house in good condition through out.

As long as you are aware of the work required and set your asking price accordingly then I wouldn’t lift a finger, unless painting a few rooms is going to make a huge difference to the price then I would sell as is

Definitely get a good local agent in & see what they advise. They know who is looking & what those people really value.

Which may be "not done" as then they can redecorate to their own taste. Clean but tired is fine. Half-done is not.

I would sell it as it is and just be reasonable in the price. I personally would like to buy a house that needs some minor decorating etc and if you do it you don't know it will be to the taste of the viewers anyway.

Good luck

I'd did a mix when I decided to sell. Replaced two tired outdated bathrooms which we'd lived with for years but also realised id like to do them ahead of selling in order to enjoy them ourselves for a year/few months.

I replaced all knackered stained carpet - went for deluxe on stairs and landing but cheapo but same colour in messy teen bedrooms, changed all 1960s white plastic (now yellowing) sockets and light switches for brushed stainless steel plus got the electrician to upgrade fuse board and provide test certs.
Replaced old boiler despite working fine with compact combi and took out hot water cylinder (ahead of bathroom refit to make extra room)
I painted the kitchen cupboards navy on bottom and left the top ones white and had nice new grey speckled vinyl.
I gravelled the driveway with buttery coloured gravel over our knackered tarmac drive. It took me weeks of shovelling 9 tonnes of gravel but eventually done.
We declutter do heavily - got a storage unit but gave loads away, took loads to tip and got a skip too.
Finished all decorating and gave the front entrance lobby a full makeover.
Loads of hanging baskets with nice stainless steel brackets.

All in all it took a house 'with potential' to being one people were fighting over to see.
I'm glad I did it this way but did nearly kill me the amount of effort between deciding to put house on market and putting the for sale sign up. It felt like for weeks we were camping in one room (me the kids the puppy and working from home) while a multitude of tradesmen did their stuff. Wasn't pleasant.

I'd borrowed an extra £20k on the mortgage to do the above and it took it to a fast sale well over asking price rather than a smaller price which might have taken ages to find a willing buyer. This was the aim. I didn't have the luxury of time to allow endless viewings over many months I decided I wanted to put in as much effort and £££ as I could to achieve the best price but only had the time I had and the additional borrowing to play with.

Hope this helps.

Sounds like us....I just repapered the scruffy "poster" walls from the children's rooms, repainted right through, scrubbed everything that was scrubbable, had already re done the windowsills and scrubbed all the ledges and edges in the window frames last year.

Make it fresh and super clean/spotless, declutter and depersonalise.
Keep garden tidy and make friends with the photographer....ours was lovely and made the house look AMAZING.

Our kitchen could do with being redone, and the sitting room, kitchen and bathroom floor likewise, but we priced accordingly, had more viewings than you could shake a stick at.

We finalised yesterday after 29 days on sale! Actually we accepted the offer in 2 weeks but they had somewhere to sell so we gave them six weeks or we'd go back to the market, and they pulled out all the stops and sold theirs in 2 weeks!

I’d say tidy de-clutter and freshen (paint neutral carpet etc) and sell.

At £1m+ you aren’t going to add any value by putting in a cheap kitchen/bathroom and will probably end up with them being ripped out anyway, so it makes no real sense, unless you are really handy and can do the stuff yourself

OP, A lot of pp's have used the term 'declutter' and I think this is a biggie. If you're not selling a house for its finishes and 'lifestyle' appeal,you're selling the space and its potential, ie a blank canvas.

So I'd hire a storage unit and try and get the rooms as minimal as possible. A coat of paint may well be worth it, and smells fresh. maybe neutral carpet if it's going to make a difference.

And small touches like the pp's addition of some gravel to give a neat look, two matching pot plants either side the door etc. Very clean windows, mirrors, bathrooms. Get everything off the kitchen countertops, vase with flowers or bowl of lemons etc. Etc.

Another vote for declutter and tidy up for all the reasons above.

We sold FIL’s property last year. It really needed new bathroom, windows, boiler and kitchen, garage door etc, but Estate Agent said if we did all that, then it would look like the other 3 houses in the same road, which were not selling. We sold it on the first visit at asking price, so no regrets here.

@Bluntness100

To be fair though, The fact you’ve not done anything to the house in two decades maybe indicates you’re not really great at diy, or you’d have been maintaining decorating etc, as such, give it a good scrub, de clutter and accept it will of course be worth a lot less than a house in good condition through out.

we did masses of DIY on our first flat and promised ourselves never again … plus DH is truly crap at anything involving paint brushes or tool kits

I could paint the bathroom but the hall and kitchen/dining room would be impossible for me as the kitchen has a double height ceiling.

We’re thinking of possibly moving next spring/summer so have a little time to play with. Bits of the house don’t look too bad - the front garden, path, front door etc are lovely so it has ‘kerb appeal’.

However, the kitchen is so tired now and the floor is a disaster zone - we stupidly fitted very expensive rubber tiles in a pistachio and cream chequerboard pattern which looked lovely for about 5 minutes but which get stained immediately with marks which won’t go and after two decades of toddlers, teenagers and dogs it makes me shudder every time I look at it. But if we redo the floor but leave the kitchen as it is I think that might look really odd?

The loft bathroom would need a new shower put in but the loo and basin are fine.

Maybe I’ll start by doing a massive declutter and see how much difference that makes … thanks everyone :)

Declutter and clean to an inch within its life.

Very different price bracket but currently have the sale on late MIL's house going through. We sought advice as to if we should do anything (property would need new kitchen, bathroom, GCH installed at a minimum) and the advice was if we do one thing that it would likely to snowball into a lot more - so central heating would mean redecoration and then probably carpets etc. The house has sold for just under 90k but I guess the principle remains. For us the cost of the works Vs possible increase in price wasn't worth it - top price level is about 105-110k. I just presented it the best I could.

(Property in the NE so still some reasonable priced properties around)