Don't people neutralise before selling any longer ?

[Milkasheika]

found this property on the Rightmove Android app and wanted you to see it: www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/145090202 Oh my eyes

I cringe in anticipation now waiting for the moment the guy inevitably says 'I'm ripping that out'

I have a bit of a Rightmove habit and among the things that make me cringe is where a fireplace has been filled in and just a space left for one of those gel fires. Or a house where you can see that the feature have gone.

I can sort of excuse DGF - he and DGM were children in the 1900s and they probably looked at the fireplaces and thought no way they were laying fires and cleaning them out every day, it was too much like what they grew up with.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain in their defence they boxed them in which will have protected them for when they were wanted again. Lots were ripped out and thrown away.

Frankly, the bathroom tiles would be the thing I'd dislike most, and tiles are much more expensive and difficult to change than any paint or wallpaper. (I don't like either the jazzy patterned tiles, or the plain white gloss ones which always make a bathroom look to me like a public convenience from the 1970s.) But both types of tile are very fashionable at the moment, so that's just me.

It's just a question of personal taste.

I prefer solid wood kitchens in the natural wood, that's all I've ever choose if I was doing up a kitchen, but I actually quite like the red one.

Agreed. I've never moved into a house where I wouldn't expect to at least repaint the walls and woodwork as a matter of course, so the colour is irrelevant. The only thing that might be a bit annoying would be wallpaper (I hate it and hate stripping it) or worse, things like tiles which are expensive to change, so it does add to the budget in theory, but in practice it's not going to affect whether I buy or not, why would it? I'm buying a house, not something temporary like the decor. In the same way, I won't pay a penny more for a 'neutrally decorated' (aka, dingy and boring) house than a ghastly outdated frilly one, as I'd change the decor both of them anyway. I buy on things like size of rooms and garden, how light the house is- things you can't change.

Oh dear, we’ve just paid to have most of the house painted before selling it in a few months. Sounds like we’ve wasted our time if most people expect to redecorate. Personally I wouldn’t want to buy a house that needs to be redecorated. It would really put me off.

I would expect to repaint, especially if it was grey, beige or white

But the chances of you painting a colour your new buyers would like are minimal so repainting is pretty inevitable.

I could live with proper colours I don't like longer than I could live with white/magnolia/grey/greige and all of those neutrals.

I agree, @DappledThings . I think vendors should just leave the property as it is, just make sure it's clean etc. Most people will redecorate to their taste.

We sold a flat Mr Monkey owned and the decor was vert tired and a bit dated. He fretted about it needing redecoration and the agent agvised us not to, he said any money we spent would not be recouped and most peple expect to redecorate any way.

Some staging can be useful. We are looking to buy a small flat at the moment and I want to be able to have a small dining table and a sitting area in the sitting room, so seeing a room set up like this is helpful.

Obviously couldn’t care less whether that table is set or not and advice to do this reminds me of the guidance to brace when your plane is crashing- something to do to keep you busy but it’s not actually going to make a difference.

I like it

Redecorating COULD have a place if say your house is really dated.

Ripping out old patterned 60s carpet switching woodchip wall paper for smooth plastered walls and removing/smoothing artex or ceiling tiles along with a kitchen/bathroom thats not older than dinosaurs and it has double glazing. That will get you a much better price as a seller because you will jump from doer-up to a non doer-up but most people will still paint and change things (you just did the bulk work).

In any modern house its unlikely to worth it.

The house we are buying has been paint floor to ceiling (EVERYTHING including all woodwork) in the exact same 'brilliant white' (the one you get in 10L tubs). The seller was trying to hide the white salting from the damp but EA told us anyway as its a legal requirement. We are going to paint every single room when we move in. Its not terrible that its all white as it will act like a base for our colours but equally we couldn't like in a brilliant white box so will have to redecorate (and stripping the wood will be a massive PITA).

The thing is, it’s likely you’d have redecorated and repainted everything anyway.
When we bought our house, it had been redecorated throughout. White in the bedrooms but some other colours in all the other rooms - deep blue fur the bathroom, dark Green for the downstairs loo, dark orange in the kitchen etc…
It was clean and totally ok to live in but certainly not to our taste!
I genuinely preferred the white though. The number of coats to hide those dark colours has been insane and it’s still coming through in some places…..

In our case it was because DGM announced she wasn't cleaning them.

@EchoChamber maybe in your case it was the right thing to redecorate.

If everything looks really scruffy and run down, it can have a negative effect on buyers. They start noticing all the problems and assume the house will be a money pit of hidden disasters. In that case, a good clear out, a bit of basic redecorating to brighten things up and fixing some of the small niggly stuff can help.

Similarly, if the house is incredibly dated and everywhere a buyer looks is ‘I couldn’t live with that’ on their scale of home decor tolerance, then redecorating at least some of it will help. People generally do expect to redecorate but will often want that to be to their timetable, rather than something the feel they must do immediately because they really hate what’s there.

Repainting some walls can make an ugly carpet look less offensive, for example. And that might be the difference between potential buyers viewing the house as liveable but needing their own stamp rather than ‘total renovation’ in their mental model. That sort of thing will affect whether they’re even willing to make an offer. It might not affect what the offer is, they just won’t make one at all.

Its easy to look past decor and actually consider room size, layout, etc.
You can paint over/repaper what isn't to your aesthetic.

I don’t think a fresh lick of paint is wasted when selling. We’ve just had some rooms done and they feel totally different when you walk in, lighter brighter etc. Lots of people buy a house on the feel of it. Also if you want to change colour it is easier if all the prep work is done.

I agree. I find tatty paintwork gives the house a tired and run down feel which puts buyers off. It certainly puts me off.

I find tatty paintwork gives the house a tired and run down feel which puts buyers off. It certainly puts me off

That's a good point.
I'd be put off if a house looked tatty because I'd assume they'd not looked after other things too, but I wouldn't be put off by neat enough decor that wasn't to my taste as I'd probably redecorate anyway.

If a lick of paint in an otherwise well-maintained house kept it looking well presented, it's probably a good idea assuming that the person decorating is making sure things are in good condition (which I'm sure PP did).

One of my friends bought a house that had been neutralised and the DIY quality was shocking! It would have put me off buying it. Months later they were still finding issues.

The linked flat does not look tatty though, it clearly has been fairly recently decorated, just not to the OPs taste. There's a world of difference between completely redecorating in neutral colours (and presumably changing all your curtains and cushions etc to match?) vs giving the walls a fresh coat of paint in the same colour they currently are.

I don't think it's ever really been normal for people to 'neutralise' a property before selling it. Maybe if you're doing it up to sell you wouldn't choose anything unusually garish, but that's about it.

Surely most people living in a property in good condition who decided to sell would market the property as-is, unless they have already tried and failed to sell and the feedback indicates the decor is a real barrier.

I agree!

One of the reasons that I bought my Victorian house is that it still has the three original coal fireplaces.