Paint before putting on the market?

[littlese]

Would you paint your house before putting it on the market? Our hallway is a bit scruffy and got a quote of £500 to paint it. DH says not worth it but I think it will probably make a difference? What do you think?

Depends how bad it is. I probably wouldn't pay £500 but might be worth doing it yourselves? We patched ours up before putting on the market and I do think it gave a better first impression.

I'd do it myself but I wouldn't pay someone to do it as it doesn't make that much difference to what someone is willing to pay.
I replaced the landing/stairs/hall carpet, redecorated and recarpeted the kids rooms and replaced a few panes of double glazing. Still got less than the house was worth so I wish I hadn't bothered.

Yeah it's hard to know if it's worth doing or not
I'm In two minds really

Paint it yourself. Houses always look fresher when newly painted.

I wanted to paint it myself but DH said no as he thinks we are useful at diy (it's true)

Can you just get some paint the same colour as it is already and paint over the worst of it? Can't go far wrong.

You’d have to be really, really useless at DIY to mess up a coat or two of paint. Drop cloths on the floor, tape the skirting board, keep a damp rag on hand and wipe up any spills/smears/drips straight away. Smallish brush to cut in by the ceiling and then use those paint pads, lovely smooth finish and don’t splatter paint everywhere like a roller does. Or do walls and ceiling bright white and you don’t even need to bother about cutting in.

A freshly painted house always looks cleaner and neater, but as a buyer if it was done shoddily (e.g paint on skirting / floors / carpets / badly cut in) i would think the owners were trying to hide something. If it was done well, I'd assume they took care of the place!

Who are you selling to and what's your house like in general? If you're selling to first time buyers as an easy turn key property I'd paint. We're looking up upsize ATM and I'm not bothered - fresh paint can be a sign that the place is well tended but it's just one part of a picture and scuffed paint wouldn't put me off.

Can you really not paint it youtselves? Unless you have a disability or additional needs or it’s very high ceilings it really isn’t difficult to paint a wall. Why don’t you buy a tester, a small roller and get a piece of a 4 paper and see if you can paint the paper. If you can, you can do the wall. Paint it similar to the colour that’s on there now and you won’t see bits you may have missed.

it really all depends on how bad it is.

There's an unexpected bonus of getting a house decorated before selling, as you have to clear the room, or at least pile things up under dust sheets, it's an ideal time to get rid off stuff you don't really use/need and helps de-clutter each room.

Do you know the original colour? If so surely you can do it? Rub down any bits that might have flaked and protect the floor/carpet.
Have some rags handy and wipe anything you get on skirtings immediately.
I'd guess the hardest to reach parts have not suffered much wear and tear so you can probably get away with touch up.

If you really can't do it then a magic sponge is great at removing scuff marks

The problem is more the time - have 2 toddlers at home and finding a time when they are not at home causing chaos is difficult
It's a 2 up 2 down so potentially could be selling to a first time buyer
I said to DH I would paint it at night but he's just flat out refused and said to get the painter in so it's not done shoddily

It is a seller's market at the moment, so don't bother.

If it was a tougher market then yes.

If you feel inclined to paint it when the children are in bed you might as well give it a go. How can your DH stop you? Wouldn't make sense to anyway. Worst case scenario you do a bad job then get the painter in to sort it out. Chances are it'll look fine and you'll have saved hundreds of pounds.

We've also got a 2-up 2-down that we're about to put on the market. For various reasons (lack of money/lack of time/planned building work which never took place) the decor is really tired. For example, in our living room there is a row of foam stickers on the wall that the DC very kindly put there a couple of years ago. And so on.....

We are painting everywhere with white paint. My stairs come out of my living room so my living room flows into the hallway with a REALLY high ceiling. I've bought an extending pole and the whole lot is being painted white - living room, hall, kitchen. I'm not hiding anything. It will be bright, clean and hopefully appealing.

I also need a new kitchen - this was part of the planned building work but now we're moving. The big problem is I have two visibly broken base cupboard doors - the internal structure is broken too so I can't just get new doors. We're in a bit of a hurry up to go to market but at the moment I'm dithering about what to do re the kitchen. The doors are absolutely horrendous so am thinking about getting a tradesman in to sort out the two cupboards - but it's likely to cost a few hundred which we don't really have to spare. But a broken kitchen could cost thousands off the sale price soooo......

I would paint your hall white OP. Can't really screw that up as no cutting in. Save your £500 for your new place.

Ask your house agent. They know what's worth doing and what isn't, if they're any good.

You could try cleaning with sugar soap - we've done this a few times and it really made a difference.

I (my DP to be exact 🤣) just painted a lot of my house before putting it on the market. And got the windows and decking cleaned and re painted one room a whole new colour and fixed up a few other odd jobs that had been waiting to get done.

We got an asking price offer within 3 weeks. Well worth it in my opinion

My last house was in the FTB bracket.

I repainted any scruffy rooms, and put new doors on the kitchen cupboards.

the news doors changed the kitchen from a country style old fashioned kitchen into a more modern, high gloss one (not my taste, but worked for that market). It looked like a brand new kitchen.

I don’t understand this. Why has he to give permission? You are not a child. Is it not also your house? Is that it? I can’t perceive asking my husband permission to paint.

I didn’t, and I had a section in the kitchen where I’d removed a radiator so it was quite obvious. Still got more than £10k over asking price.
I don’t think it would make enough difference to the offers you’ll get to be worth spending £500 on, and buyers may well want to change the colour anyway.

Our house is currently on the market. I repainted the bathroom and 2 ceilings as they just looked tired and scruffy. Rooms where the paint looked tidy I left.

We repainted our kitchen celling as we had a leak (been fixed for ages) and obviously that wouldn't look good. We painted our bedroom as it was tired looking. The rest of the house looked OK (dining room, second bedroom and kitchen were only painted 3 years ago) the third bedroom is a horrible cream but we have never painted it.

I personally would get it done.

I'm more aghast at the price of £500 for the hall? Or is it a hall, stairs and landing?

Unless it's got huge holes that need filling it's easy enough to do, get a cutting in brush, masking tape and look at some tutorials on YouTube if you haven't a clue! I would definitely do it in the evenings when the kids are in bed.