Would cosmetic wear and tear put buyers off our cottage?

[FuzzyBumbleeBee]

We've decided to move but I'm worried about the state of the house
I don't want to and can't afford to spend a few hundred in painting and filling holes plus the house we want is already on the market and pretty perfect so will be snapped up quick as other houses in the area have been, it's only been up a week so we have the estate agents coming Friday to value and do photos on ours so we should be good to go by next weekend

Our house is good and solid no structural issues, we had the roof fixed in the last 6months the chimney was redone because of damp

The house has a lot of work needed in terms of sprucing it up eg lots of areas paint needs re doing or touching up, marks from stair gates on the walls, rough patches on the wall due to being rather lazy when we filled a hole and not sanding it properly before painting
The kitchen cabinet paint is starting to chip ect
The garden has the kids rather large paddling pool which I won't move as it then uncovers the large patch of mud underneath were the grass died things like that

Would this put you off?

I'm hoping the fact we are close to the beach, pretty old cottage, in town centre, good sized garden, working fireplace and while we are a 2 bed on paper it's actually used as a 3 bed easily with dining room and living room will sway someone to ignore the chips ect

I've already spent out in paint for my kids rooms as they need re doing due to the damp damage before it was fixed and that's cost a couple hundred, and I have emergency dental work due next week as well as the dog getting castrated which I can't delay so really can't waste money on even more paint for the downstairs this month and don't want to delay for fear if missing out in this property

It completely depends on the price. Personally, I'd rather buy a house like this for a lower price than one that's better cared for and not to my taste, because either way I'd be having to do the work.

Have you viewed the other house yet? I think being unable to spend £20 on a tin of paint until pay day means money is really tight. There's a lot of outlay in just buying a house. If you're determined to get the other house, put yours on at a really tempting price. And ask the estate agent to be really honest about what needs doing for a quick sale.

Me too!

We've only ever bought project houses (about eight over the years) and I'd never buy one that was renovated as it's highly unlikely it would be done to our taste/standards.

From the couple of pics you've shared @FuzzyBumbleeBee it really looks very uncared for/unloved, so I'd expect to pay a project price.

In the current market where we are (coastal West Sussex), virtually nothing is selling...unless it's incredibly cheap for the size/location. So something expected to go for £1m+ might sell if it's priced at 800k and something expected to go for 500k might sell if priced at 400k.

Example - two similar small family houses on the market, one at 400k, the other at 350k. Both done up fairly recently. The 400k one has been on for a year with every EA going (originally on at 425, reduced a couple of times), the other came on at the start of June and went SSTC in two weeks. No price drops needed!

Of course the IOW market might be completely different to the mainland.....

Personally it would put me off as I wouldn’t want to be moving into a house that needs the whole thing repainted and things fixing.

However there will be people out there who it wouldn’t bother. It’s just about finding the right person.

You could potentially lose thousands not doing this cheap cosmetic work and if you told me you couldn’t afford to paint because of the cost of dental work I would not be interested at all because I would think the house won’t have been properly maintained and you won’t have the money to move.

I'm afraid I would walk away. It looks unloved and uncared for.

A house doesn't have to be perfect but it has to look as though someone cares.

I think it may put some people off! I guess it depends on how many other similar houses are up for sale.

It might not BE grubby but it LOOKS grubby. Seriously as others have said a tin of paint costs £15. Sandpaper, tape and a brush will be £10.
£25 could be the difference between sale or no sale or potentially thousands of pounds in offer price

I wouldn't expect any house to be immaculate, but I would question a house where no one has been vested in a house to carry out a few easy tasks (unless they're say disabled). It shows the house is clearly unloved.

Having said that, if there's a house you're seriously interested in, all you can do is put the house on the market and see what happens.

For me, when I see that the finish of work has been done poorly, I assume that the stuff you can't see has also been done poorly. Even when looking at projects the finish of what was done mattered.

For example in one house we bought it needed a new kitchen, bathroom every room fully stripping out. All the rooms were wallpapered and it needed stripping off and replacing but you could see that when the wallpaper was put up the person had done a good job. The kitchen was old and dated but was a good quality kitchen of it's time. It meant we were optimistic that when we did start the work we wouldn't find too many hidden horrors which broadly held true

A tin of paint will cost less than a few bits of a food shop, what I mean here is I’d eat pasta for a few days and buy the paint, or I’d delay the tooth stuff not great timing when you are wanting to move to be recovering from major dental work.

I also can”t falthom that your are too skint to buy a tin of paint but you can afford to move house pay solicitors etc

If you've already done lots of work on your house then you must have some bits of paint left over that you could use? Or maybe search online for free paint.
I think you know your house isn't in a good enough state to sell quickly for a decent price. You need to decide if you're willing or able to take the financial hit of marketing it in its current state.

Viewers may see a lack of decoration and
worry that you’ve not been good at general maintenance and there would be bigger issues you’ve not fixed. If it’s clean and well presented, they’d hopefully look past that and would probably redecorate anyway. It’s not the best time of year to sell with people going away so if you’re really keen then try now and if it doesn’t sell take off the market and give it a glow up.

Just get some super cheap paint from Home Bargins or somewhere like that. It does look awful. it’ll be worth it spending a little bit compared to people knowing thousands off. It would make me think what else is wrong with the house.

"it would actually save us money as we will be increasing the term"

OP thats completely wrong, by extending the term you will be costing yourself a small fortune over term ! Have you actually looked at the amount it costs in extra interest. Its a shocking difference. Just for example.

200k at 4.8% over 10 years costs 53k in total interest

200k at 4.8% over 15 years costs over 79k in total interest !

So by extending the same amount by just 5 years you will pay an extra 26k for the loan !!! Why would you do that to yourself... and try to say you would be saving. Thats bizarre.

... our mortgage advisor has already gone through costs with us it would actually save us money as we will be increasing the term as we have less than 10 years left currently...
You can bet he gets paid handsomely for his advice.

I wish we could eat pasta for a few days
There are multiple allergies across my family so while I have reduced the weekly food shop to lots of jacket spud sort of thing we can't do much more with it

Taking in everyone's comments

Yes actually he does as he's great at finding us the best deal and was originally £200 but last time £300 every 2/5 years depending on how long we fix
Prices are going up everywhere

I don't have a great head for mortgages and him getting us the best deal means I'd rather pay him and avoid the stress myself

I miss spoke or typed

It will be reducing our outgoings per month
Yes I know we will pay more overall but we would then overpay while rebuilding our savings and eventually reduce the term again

We viewed a 4 year old house like this, scuffs and paint damage, very badly cared for which really put us off. It must have put others off too as the house was originally listed for £350k and it eventually dropped to £320k when it still took a while to sell. People worry what else is damaged and unloved / uncared for.

That looks sooo dirty, it's not just from scrubbing - the fan and the baby gate look like they have grime caked on them. If you have a dog in the house I'd be worried about the smell if even the fan looks like that

Is there no one who would just lend you the money for the paint I think it will make a big difference on the woodwork. I happily give a loan a friend the money in your situation.

A tin of white paint for those scuff marks wouldnt cost much

And yes it would worry me because I’d fear that the house wasn’t maintained well and that you didn’t want to/couldn’t afford things like boiler inspections

Our previous owner clearly did some v sloppy diy painting on the house (or let her teen kids do it?) before moving in. I wasn’t looking closely because we wanted the house. However. In future I will look closely, as undoing her awful paintwork has taken so much longer than if I’d just had to paint and decorate as things were. She’s basically ruined the walls of one of the bedrooms. Sigh.

edited to answer more directly. What I mean by the above is that some people would wayyy rather you left it alone than patch it up.