How much does selling an unfinished house knock of it's value?

[wrenfern]

Toying with the idea of selling ours. Outside our garden is an absolute bog, it needs new fencing both sides and at the back. Needs some sort of drainage as the soil quality is very very poor. There are weeds galore. It's currently completely open at the back of our house. The house also needs new guttering and fascia boards and there is a god awful 'lean to' which currently houses the contents of a shed.

Inside one double bedroom and the hall, stairs and landing needs decorating and flooring put down.

Would this work make a massive difference? It's the garden that is the biggest job of all.

What you've described sounds upwards of 50k worth or work. You can sell it but price the house to reflect the work needed

I'm not a property expert but surely it depends on the buyers view of what work needs to be done for them to be happy and how much it would cost for that work. There's no set amount, it's going to depend on each individual property imo.

Some people are happy to do work after they've bought, some wouldn't even entertain an unfinished house. This really is a piece of string question.

Well, yes, it will make a difference, but it will also save you the cost of doing it - depending what your local market is like, the latter may well more than cancel out the former - and make it worth your while to sell as is regardless. Don’t underestimate the cost of garden works, particularly at the moment when landscapers are in such demand.

In your position, I would get quotes for the work required, then an estate agent to come round and value ‘as is’ and finished, then do the maths. It’s the only way to know with any kind of certainty.

I would imagine depends on a lot of things.
A lot of buyers won't want the hassle and want a house ready to move into.
Is it a much sought after area or just average.
Is it unfinished as part of a new build or an incomplete renovation ?
Is the house water tight ?
Can you get the house valued as is and also get the relevant works costed ?
The garden maybe off putting on its own and may need more than just remedial work to even put on the market.
Gardens can be very costly to sort out.
Why is it like a bog ?
For me personally if it was the right house in the right area I would consider it but only if there was a significant reduction , so I could pay for rent while upgrading the house.
Just curious why you want to sell ?

Think it massively depends where you are. At the moment, savvy buyers know that the cost of any works has hugely increased and both supplies and labour are in very high demand. If you sell a “project” now you should be prepared to price it very competitively.

Can you get someone in to finish decorating the interior and give the frontage some curb appeal and then get it valued?

It wouldn’t put me off but I would expect to pay less then a finished house

Probably quite a lot, as most people, including estate agents, are unable to visualise the finished article.

You can get a valuation for current condition and with the work done, as the previous posters have said. Is doing the work yourself a possibility or would you only be able to sell without the work being done?

There are people who look to buy property they can improve so they are out there. You see properties advertised as 'requiring modernisation' or similar tactful phrases to confirm that the property has been priced to take into account the work required.

I would think quite a bit, I would be very wary as I would assume that the whole thing has been bodged so I would budget to do the whole thing again, even if bits looked ok. If the area is really sought after you might be ok but I think you’d probably still be better finishing it if you can.

As long as the price reflected the work required it wouldn't put me off, but then every one of the eight properties we've bought over the years has been a project 🙄

Speaking from experience of selling an unfinished house - although pre-pandemic and current boom, back in late 2017 - we found that, despite having removed acres of woodchip wallpaper and replastered throughout, tidied the massively overgrown garden and redecorated some rooms/painted crittal windows externally, we still had to sell at a loss. The price we achieved for a blank canvas with loads of character and potential was less than we'd paid three years previously ☹️

Can't imagine that being the case now though.....

Thanks all.

@cillmantain we're looking to move for a few reasons but the main one being our neighbours. They're a pain in the arse - this week alone they drove their car into our wall and didn't even tell us. They throw rubbish over the fence, park across our drive and they're probably one of the noisiest families to live next door to. We've just had enough to be honest.

If the whole back of the house is open it will be unmortgageable- so you'll be targeting the tiny pool of cash buyers who are willing to take on a big project.

I'd at least get it structurally finished!

Usually you lose what the works would cost so either way it makes no difference. A project appeals to many but always found that ready to move into tended to sell quicker as many can't imagine tinge finished project or aren't willing to do the work. So basically it will probably end up that you have the same amount out of it but doing it it may sell slightly faster

Gardening wouldn't make much difference at all like I said before mostly in the speed of sale but not a lot.

You would have to declare in the sale though that you have problems with the neighbours it's on one of the forms the solicitors send I think

If you haven't complained about the neighbours e.g. to the council or police, or been in any disputes with them, I don't think it has to be declared when selling.