Repainting house before putting on the market

[escapingthecity]

We will be putting our house on the market later this year. We've been here a few years and with two kids some of the paintwork is looking quite scruffy - scuffs along along the hallway, marks on the walls in the kids' rooms etc. I thought we should probably repaint before photos/viewings to make it as appealing as possible.

We've just got the quote for doing it back from our decorator. It's £10k and we'd need to move out for 2 weeks. That's a lot more and longer than I thought. What does MN think? Is it worth doing? Would scuff marks put you off buying a family home? Price is likely to be over £1m (fully modernised 4 bed terrace in v desirable area) if that helps with context.

I would do the hallway, staircase and kitchen but leave the bedrooms.

Scuffs don't put me off tbh as we always decorate anyway.
If anything, what @IglesiasPiggl said.

Would save yourself thousands if you done it yourself. Esp if just white.

For that amount of money I’d be getting at least three quotes, as well as looking at the bits I could do myself to bring the price down.

Although if you’re going to be selling for over a million pounds, I’m guessing a few hundred pounds of savings here and there wouldn’t make a difference?

I would talk to your estate agent about how much, if any, repainting needs doing in the current market for your type of house. Just doing the hallway and stairs/landings sounds reasonable — we sold six months ago, only touched up two scuffed walls, and had eight offers above asking in two days of viewings.

I don’t think I’d bother - save your money and effort for your new home. I wouldn’t expect paintwork in a family home with young children to be perfect. Clean, tidy and no obvious defects is what people will be looking for.

When we sold our first home, we washed all the walls, using a magic eraser on the scuffs where needed. We then spot painted where needed

People seem to want to come in and gut the place, these days. I wouldn't do much other than tidy/touch up.

Have you washed everything? It's surprising how much better my window ledges looked after a good bleaching.

£10k for 2 weeks work. How many people on the job? Even if it's 4 that's still over a £1k a week. Try and get some other quotes.

What needs doing? Is it just a recoat or is there some plater that needs replacing/patching up. Are there lots of dings and dents in the walls that need filling? Are you trying to cover dark colours over? Will the woodwork need sanding back to remove layers of gloss paints.

Is the house otherwise in really good condition or are people likely to want to replace the kitchen and bathrooms. I think it people are likely to want to do work then don't bother, just wash the walls down to remove the grubbiness.

@picklemewalnuts we'll do a thorough deep clean as well, yes. Some of these marks won't come off with magic eraser - none of this paintwork is white and I find it's not very effective on coloured walls.

There are too many rip off merchants around especially in the South East. I was quoted over £3k for a two day job (similar sounding property). Eventually, I found an out-of-contract labourer on a reasonable day rate. It is not an impeccable finish but there is no guarantee that they would have delivered it either. It looks ten times better than before

@fruitbrewhaha there are a couple of cracks which need covering over and some of the marks are dings, yes, which will need some filling. They say it'll take longer as they'll have to cover and protect our stuff in the kitchen/sitting room/one bedroom that needs repainting.

If you are selling the house as an immaculate, recently fully renovated, everything very new thing - then yes get it painted.

If it's more likely buyers will go "well at some point we should replace the shower or the kitchen worktops or Windows" then I wouldn't bother repainting at that cost, is unlikely it recoup itself in higher offers.

I think it does depend what sort of look the house has generally, but in my experience reasonably fresh paint makes buyers think the house is in good nick and has been looked after. But if you've done it in the last few years don't bother - it's only worth it if the paintwork is properly old and scuffed. Also depends a bit on your local market. Where are I am, buyers are not in a position to be picky.

I would also be wary of asking estate agents. In my experience they always tell you not to bother because they want you to just list it ASAP.

How big is the house?

I’d say that £10k would be better spent staging the house. By all means paint the hallway and lightest rooms but I think moving out is ridiculous. There’s more bang for the buck decluttering and staging.

@Jaffajiffy we need to do a lot of decluttering to make it presentable - two kids' junk and toys everywhere, and we've been WFH for two years so have got a bit comfortable in a bit of a mess

@CiderJolly it's a four bed terrace. The quote covers all of downstairs, the hallways and stairs throughout, the wall at the front and one of the bedrooms

We did hire a painting crew for both interior and exterior of house because there's no way it would've been purchased with peeling paint (and the estate agent advised us amongst other improvements) and it was shocking how much better it looked.