Change bathroom / kitchen or sell as is?

[Fallulah]

We have a 2 bed terrace in a sought after area in the South East. Properties sell for between £240-290k (I know, ridiculous compared to what we paid over ten years ago but that’s the market) and two beds in this area are still getting snapped up quickly.

Our bathroom is outdated. It’s white, so not offensive, but old. In January we paid the deposit to have it redone, total cost around £8k. However, nothing has started yet and there’s no sign of a start date on the horizon. We were planning on doing the kitchen (90s wood units) after that, at similar cost.

But we really need a bigger house and we’re getting impatient.

Will sticking around and improving the bathroom and kitchen improve the value significantly or should we just get everything clean and uncluttered and market it as is? I can’t make my mind up.

market as is. The chances of finding a buyer who has exactly your taste is vanishingly small. Take the ‘done’ price discount it by what you would have spent and market at that price

Wouldn't bother my BIL replaced his bathroom prior to selling his house, it was in a skip 6mths later as the new owners remodelled.
Sell as it and keep the money in your pocket the new owners can do it to their own taste. Just price accordingly and make sure the EA pass on to interested parties the price reflects the updating required.

Personally, however speaking as a London property owner with the same issues (ye olde 90s kitchen! My standard corny joke is that my kitchen is vintage Britpop), I’d use renovation money towards a new home. Your property will attract buyers with a view to making the place their own. People tend to move in and tear down what you’ve done. Save your ££.

As is, your asking price will reflect any need to update the bathroom or kitchen. We bought his house with its pink bathroom suite and old gold taps. It may put some buyers off but if a room functions and it is just cosmetic you can live with it for a while. I think we lived with the pink bathroom for 7 years.

Market as is. Total waste of money changing it, most people will change to their own taste anyway.

Another vote for leaving it as is-you’ll never recoup your money

We sold my late Father’s house, it badly needed a new bathroom, kitchen was ok, but basically the whole house needed a lot of work. DH fitted the original bathroom and kitchen and was were happy to do this. We had Estate Agent round and he told us houses that needed work doing would sell faster as buyers like to do their own refurbishment, the example was a house similar to ours, same road, all modern, everything brand new, but nobody wanted it. Ours sold first week to first buyers at asking price.

Agree with everyone else - market as is. People like to refurbish to their own taste so might be more attractive as is.

Market as is. Lots of people like to do their own Reno’s now and you may pay for new kitchen & bathroom which people don’t like.

Nobody doing something up to sell puts in a nice bathroom or kitchen - they always go for cheap basics as they don’t care. It would put me right off as I don’t want to stress about the environmental impact of ripping out a new but basic kitchen or bathroom.

Leave as is!

I just bought a house in the South East. I think out of the 30 houses or so that I viewed only 3 of these properties had bathrooms that I thought I would not want to change/update....

It is very likely that the new owners will want to update to their own taste so as long as the house is clean and uncluttered I would not do any extra work.

With prices falling the longer you wait to get on the market the less you could possibly make to offset the costs of those renovations so unlikely to be worth it financially. Market as is.

Leave it as is. Give it an absolute monster cleaning. Then stage it for viewings with posh accessories, new hand towel bath mat kept for that purpose. Maybe a fresh leafy pot plant. Get a large storage tub and every time there is a viewing put all the family shampoos, sponges toothbrushes etc into it and into the boot of your car. If you've a lot of viewings in a row, just keep that tub in the bathroom with the stuff in it so it can be whisked away.