What is and isn't worth doing before I put my house on the market?!

[JohnnyMarr]

I'm planning on selling my house in the spring, and would really appreciate some advice on what is and isn't worth doing before I put it on the market.

Internally it's fine, but should I freshen up the paint work? Any "staging" tips or other general advice?

The outside definitely needs a bit of tlc, but I'm unsure what's particularly important and what isn't! I'm thinking of pressure washing the path, new front gate, some pots and fairy lights to pretty things up a bit, anything else?

I've also just had a quote for a bit over 2K to repair two chimneys and completely repoint a third one - is it worth getting this done, or should I just leave it to the potential buyers and expect to knock a bit off the asking price?

As you can see, I'm averagely clueless, so any advice would be hugely appreciated!

I put my house on the market last year and started a thread asking for advice. My house is/was basically in good condition but we had LOADS of decluttering and little jobs to do. Some people will give you a long list of things to do to make it perfect but I found it overwhelming and unachievable (two young kids, one with autism, and DH and I both work) so I had to prioritise what would make a real difference. I suggest focusing on:

• decluttering, get rid of as much stuff you don't like/need as you can, this will help with the eventual move as well
• deep clean everywhere, get windows cleaned on the outside and clean them inside too
• fix any obvious or quick/easy things... in our case we had a few little odd jobs and booked a handyman for half a day (neither of us have time/skills for it though you might)
• tidy up the garden... I did loads of weeding and mowed the lawn but that was it, our garden isn't amazing but I concluded there wasn't a huge amount of point tarting it up just for viewings. Pots fine if you want to take them with you, fairy lights pointless as viewings will be in daylight and I think lights are better at night.
• think carefully about redecorating; most buyers will want to decorate themselves so not much point doing it before selling, but I would suggest redecorating anything very off putting. In our case many rooms were fine but we did get the kitchen/diner/utility painted as we hadn't done it since moving in (10 years ago ) and we had things like bits of bare plaster (where we'd had light switches put in). We chose the decorator carefully ie someone good but not ridiculously expensive, and ditto with the paint. We chose a pale neutral colour (not magnolia!) that we like and makes it all fresher and lighter. We have been very happy with it and I think it was worth it. Whether you should redecorate depends very much on the current state of decoration though. One upside was that it definitely forced us to do a big declutter of those areas as we had to empty the rooms!

It also depends what type of property you are selling, eg if you are selling a £2mln Georgian townhouse in a ritzy bit of London Vs a 3 bed house on a bog standard estate in a small town.

For a fairly average home, then I would just seriously declutter and clean up for photos. Don't bother spending money on "staging". It's an average family home, not a high end designer property. You don't need it to look like a show home or a spread in an interiors magazine - it won't get you a significantly higher price and is not worth the money spent.

Don't bother repainting to "freshen up" - just touch up any massive paint scratches in visible areas eg hallway, by front door.
Your design taste may not be their own and they won't pay a premium for your fresh greige paint if they they plan to repaint in their choice of purple/blue/yellow anyway.

Declutter, declutter, declutter
Plus helps when you are moving that you already got rid of a load of stuff.

Outside, jet wash the path and paving, declutter any pointless garden furniture, weed the path/paving, cut the grass, trim back any vastly overgrown shrubs, remove dead plants from pots but no need to spend money planting lots of new pots or adding lights.

Spend on the repointing and make sure the buyers are told it is new, shows you care about the fabric of the building.

I think that unless you have painted or papered in strong colours that might be a big turn-off or the walls are really grubby, then there's not much point in repainting. Our EA told us not to bother and that people wouldn't notice as it's all neutral. That's certainly the case with the place we are buying - it's magnolia-tastic but we plan to paint to our taste anyway. The issue is that once you start to repaint, you end up needing to do all of it as it just makes everything else look worse.

Agree with PPs that the biggest thing you can do is declutter. And then declutter again. Keep doing it from now until you move. Surfaces clear, things tidied away. If you have junk everywhere, people can't see how their furniture would work and they just think it's small or they'd have to find money to buy new stuff.

If the repointing is obvious enough to be flagged as red in the survey I'd do that. Unless you've done all obvious improvements to your house (open plan modern kitchen / diner, enough bathrooms with modern suite and tiles, landscaped garden etc.), viewers will find something to fixate on. Don't let it be the boring stuff like a chimney, windows, boiler. Many buyers these days will be prepared to do one thing and one thing only. That might be a new kitchen or one of the bathrooms or if they have a bit of money, they might do a knock through or extension. It's unlikely they will be prepared to replace the kitchen AND all bathrooms AND remodel the layout. If they have little money, they may only be prepared to slap on a coat of paint. And if they have to have the chimney repointed, windows replaced or a new boiler, it may not leave them money to do any of those things.

Oh and you should definitely get the chimney work done, ask the roofer about a guarantee for the work and keep copies of the paperwork for forwarding to the solicitor. It's the kind of thing that might come up in a survey and you are also supposed to disclose any known issues. I think getting structural repairs done shows you have looked after the property. It also prevents further more costly damage.

Definitely do the chimney
when my son was looking he saw a lovely house but the bannister was incredibly loose ( probably an easy fix and something obvious so it made him think what else hasn’t been maintained

house is still on the market 18months and it’s been reduced 3 times from 325 - 295. But other houses in the street are still selling at 315

Thanks everyone for such helpful advice, I really appreciate it as I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and am also slightly hampered by financial constraints, so I want to spend the limited funds I have available where it really matters.

I'll get the chimneys sorted and begin decluttering and go from there - Dd and Dgd are moving out over the next couple of weeks so that should help massively, but I've definitely accumulated a lot of my own stuff that I could easily live without!

I've genuinely got no idea what my place is worth, so curious to get a couple of EAs round to value it.

Be careful of EAs over-valuing, particularly at the start of the year when they try and talk up the market. This year is always going to be the year that things pick up! Try and do some research yourself but look at 'sold' prices rather than what houses are marketed at. There's quite a bit of down-valuing going on during mortgage offer stage at the moment, and you don't want kinks in the chain that could be avoided by understanding the market value now.

Staging- really helps