Is it worth painting before selling?

[RubiesAndRaindrops]

We would like to move house, but the paintwork is in a state - bad paint job previously plus the skirting boards etc have gotten discoloured over time, the architraves and windowsills need doing (lots of knocks and scrapes, peeling in some places), hairline cracks in the plaster/walls. I got a quote to have the whole interior of the house redecorated but its about £5k & I don't know if it's worth paying for this or just sell as is (realistically I can't do it myself - small children & other family commitments etc). Is it worth redecorating? Example of the bad paint work shown. Thank you!

I've only ever touched up the paintwork in particularly scuffed and obvious areas, but I've always been selling 'easy' houses in sought-after places, hence an easy market, so I never made any effort other than a good clean and decent photos and floorplans. The efforts people routinely recommend on here (renting or borrowing 'staging' furniture, redoing gardens, complete paint jobs etc) sound completely mad to me, unless it's a quirky or niche property in a challening spot or bad market.

I suppose my question would be whether this is an easy sale or not?

Don't bother - if it doesn't sell in a couple of months or whatever time scale you hope for you can then do bits like this. It is likely they'll re-do them when they move in anyway IMO.

If you are having to pay someone I wouldn't bother. Most new owners plan to decorate anyway.

If I was going to do it myself, I might do the worst rooms in a basic white/ cream but wouldn't be stripping skirting boards or windowsills.

A quick-ish fix is to just paint the woodwork (eg architraves / skirtings, doors and doorframes), which can be done reasonably quickly - and also cleaning the rest of the walls with sugar soap (and patching in the worst bits of paint on the walls if necessary). The last house we sold, it looked very tired (paint work all very dirty and faded), but sugar soap was miraculous on the walls, and I re-painted the woodwork by myself (a thick ‘one-coat’ paint). I was really proud of myself when the estate agents that all came round thought that the whole thing had been very freshly decorated! It helped that the colours were all neutral (majority white, one cream coloured), as these offend the fewest buyers!

Depends what £5k is compared to the house price really

Also depends whether the house is otherwise modernised, so if you do a paint job, buyers will see a “fully done” house. Or are the kitchen/bathroom etc dated, in which case people will probably expect to do some work at some point anyway and so new paintwork might be less worthwhile

One thing that is always worth doing IMO is painting over any old damp stains (use stain stop first) to prevent buyers wondering if there is a problem.

I would probably do the walls with the cracks in the plaster. This is what an agent advised my mum to do - buyers can be wary of cracks even though they mostly don't indicate a bigger problem.

What is the house worth? If you are in a£2million house, then £5k is nothing.

Don't completely redecorate. Just do the worst bits. Touch up the woodwork, wipe the marks off etc.

I think get the lot done. It's a really good investment and you'll get that £5k back. FWIW, my house was valued a few months ago. I painted it from stem to stern, new carpets too. I got it valued again recently by 3 more agents and it's £100k more, which is what I need it to be to make my divorce settlement work. Getting those cracks and marks fixed, re-plastering in some areas, painting everywhere and just giving it a freshen up, has made a mountain of difference in my case.

I'd say, no. Whatever you do, someone else might not want, in ant event, I suspect most purchasers would want to do some of the rooms to make it their own, might knock down a wall etc.

That £5k could be part of your negotiation budget. The one thing I would do is clean the woodwork and any kitchen appliances you're leaving, which you probably intend to do.

In my area, freshly painted starter houses seem to be selling at about 15% more than identical ones with tired decor. I always paint before selling. Many buyers are terrified of trying to find tradesmen.

I would 100% touch up areas, maybe not a full repaint.

We viewed a house once that had water marks on the ceiling and wall from a leak. I asked if it was recent and they said it was from a year or two ago. Put me right off the house. If they couldn’t be bothered to look after the basics then what else didn’t they look after?

It depends, as has been said on the overall selling price you’re looking to get.
I personally will paint everything fresh white when I sell, ceilings of course too, obviously most buyers are going to want to choose colours and redecorate, but by providing a blank slate, your house will seem more appealing imo, or should I say less daunting. So scrub it up for a likely higher price than the outlay it’ll cost, for a bunch of white emulsion and eggshell. Just my 2p.

Thank you for replying. Judging from my neighbours house(s) that sold within the last few years, I'd guess it's worth about £350k (neighbours were marketed higher than that, but most have conservatories which we don't have so I assume mine will be less). Similar houses in my road generally seemed to take between 3-6 months to sell (all with dated decor). The kitchen & bathroom are about 7 years old, so not new but not really old either. We never repainted the woodwork its all yellowed with age plus I attempted to repaint the internal doors when we moved in (they were all a peach colour to match the wallpaper in the hall). The doors are a bit streaky (from brush strokes, I managed to hide the peach) but are old and if we were staying I'd probably replace them. The windowsills upstairs will definitely need doing as strips have flaked off in some areas and its all cracked and brittle, but that I can probably strip and repaint in the evenings maybe, I just can't decide whether everything else should be done too I keep swinging one way then the other!

Paint rarely needs to be actually stripped, on woodwork that is.

Sand and use (two part) filler. Sand again then undercoat.

It makes a massive difference as to how manky things look.

Sorry, but there's no way that fresh paint and new carpets have added £100k to the value of a property. I suspect those agents are telling you what you want to hear.

Tricky. If I could do it myself, I definitely would but I realise that’s not an option for you (wouldn’t be for me either). You could see how it does if you are in no big rush and if it doesn’t seem to be going the right way, spend out. If you are under pressure time wise, I think I’d pay for it though.

@Lonelycrab thanks for the tip. The flaked area on the windowsill is pretty big (about 25cm - from the window having been left open in the rain I suspect- if I forget to close the window it gets wet on the exact same spot) It flaked off the first time I went to clean it & I never got round to trying to fix it. In some places knocks go through to the bare wood. I'm guessing smaller knocks could be filled but as this is so large I probably ought to strip it?

Well it looks like it’s almost stripped itself from that pic! Depending on how much else there is to the sill, can’t see from the pic, you may want to get the whole lot off, I guess my point was that if some of the paint is solid and still adhering well, don’t strip it for the sake of it.

I find a chisel is good for getting paint off on things like that rather than a scraper or sanding. But if much of the paint is still ok, sand the gradient between bare sill and the painted bit so it’s smooth, then prime/undercoat the whole lot.

5k is not a bad quote for painting a whole house & the photos suggest it does need doing.

I think I would do it before putting the house on the market. Wouldn’t bother with things like a new kitchen or bathroom as that’s personal taste but to paint the whole house a neutral colour will definitely give a better impression to potential buyers.

Following

We did the worst two rooms ourselves - one where blue tack had destroyed what was a bad choice of colour anyway and one where a curtain rail had come down so it needed a bit of plaster and then that needed paint.

I have always thought that presenting a house nicely may not do a massive amount to the value you sell it for (but it may do some), but it will definitely help it to sell much much quicker - which in some regards can be a real bonus. I think in the photo that you showed in the OP, definitely filling junctions where there are gaps, sanding and re-painting in a white eggshell would make that cupboard look so good. In our house that we sold in 2005, there was a really ramshackle shed in the garden - all the floor was rotten, the walls were faded and the roof covering really shabby. When we were preparing to sell, we removed the internal rotten floor panels, bought new roofing membrane for the roof, and stained the outside of the shed a sage green, it looked a million per cent better, and the person who eventually bought made a point of asking if we were leaving the shed as she liked it so much!!

I think you should also consider first impressions - so freshly paint the front door in a good colour, put plants in pots outside the front, tidy up and maintain any front area / garden that you have, consider window boxes with pretty flowers in if you can. This will all massively help with the photo of the front too, so more people may view. Also hallway - as this is part of the first impression - fresh decor, nice mirror on wall, tidy, no clutter.

Fill, sand and paint that window sill.

Touch up everything else. Your bathroom and kitchen should be OK. Cleanliness is much more important.

Get some new towels, make things match, tart it up.
Woodwork doesn't take that long to do. Boring and tedious, yes, but really not much effort.

Thank you everyone. I've had someone else round to look to give a quote, waiting to see what they say. I thought that the windowsill would need stripping back, but he said that he'd see how much came off easily and if the underlying paint was sound, sand it down and blend it all in.