What do you need to do to a house to sell it?

[FinishedAtFifty]

I always thought I’d sell my house really easily because it’s one of the cheapest options in a desirable village with a great school. However now I’ve got my kids through school the market seems very different to what I imagined.

I don’t really want to do anything to my house as I get ripped off being on my own. It took two attempts to get both the boiler and bathroom changed. Three different decorators. After this experience I stopped trying to get things done and just lived with it.

What do I realistically have to do it? It needs new external brickwork, new kitchen, new internal doors, decorating etc.

People don’t seem to want to live with other peoples choices so I feel like even if I decorated , changed the kitchen a buyer would rip it out etc.

Yes it’s just working out whether to leave as it is, tackle some jobs etc.

Did they end up selling because they were priced right? Yes.

If the market was better I would have no problem selling it as people would want to get a foot hold in the village. Not sure if that would happen now.

There was a thread here a few years back - looking for opinions on whether people would prefer to buy a property with outdated/tatty kitchen and bathroom, or a property with new kitchen and bathroom. As I recall - the majority would prefer the old kitchen and bathroom as they could then replace to their own choice. The new kitchen/bathroom actually put people off buying as they didn't want to rip out something which was new and ok, but not to their taste.

I'd go for clean and tidy. Tackle any small jobs which you can fix yourself. Price realistically.

Yes, a property at that price would be a liability, you would have to make it secure and you would be responsible for the safety of the building as well as liable for council tax and then double council tax when it was empty for a certain period of time, a house at that price would likely be rubble and in an area no one wanted to live in, you would be better sticking the 1k in premium bonds.

Extreme cleaning and decluttering are worth doing because free. Pick an estate agent with decent photographs. At the moment if there’s a lot to do I would probably just leave it but see what the valuation difference would be as a pp says. Look on house prices io for any local recent sales and compare with the valuations you are getting.

This is what I’d like to do. I just want to move on. Thankyou for your advice.

If I am looking at a property that needs work, I'd want a clear list of what needs doing, rough cost estimations, and timelines
It's one thing to say , it's cheaper because the new owner will do the work, but that puts a whole other job on to the buys.
Now you have to source workers, live in a building site, pay for Reno's when you've already paid moving costs.
It can be done, but be clear what it would cost to the buyer and subtract that off

As people have said, make it look very tidy and allow for repairs/basic upgrades in the price.

I agree with @TeacheeTeacherson there are going to be some low hanging things you can do that cost little and are unskilled... ot wont necessarily increase price but it will increase saleability...

eg. My stone windowsills looked a shambles.... some filler, sanding and some paint across the summer and the house looks nice / well maintained / like it won't cost you £2k in the next 5 years ...

Things like plant pots either side of the door etc.

Dunelm and asda do cheap nice home wear

So how are older people going to sell their houses and downsize? I couldn't sell my house without doing a lot of work and I don't have the funds or the energy to do that. So I will just stay put.

It’s supply and demand. Basic economics. Everything has its price even if demand is low.

I've just had a look at the Sold section on Rightmove for one of the £5,000 flats - I went and had a look at the outside of it so I remember the address. It hasn't sold.

There's another one on for £5,000. Went on the market yesterday. It's a mess. I remember it being on the market not too long ago. It's been stripped back to the brickwork in living room and what used to be the kitchen. Ceilings have been taken right back, sections of floor either lifted or falling in. And there's what looks like a plastic down pipe, or soil pipe, running along the top of the bedroom wall! Place is clearly riddled with damp and rot, and whoever bought it has given it up as a bad job. I don't reckon there will be many people queuing up to take that on.

Clearly the market judges the £5000 price to be too high then, and they need reducing to a price where they will sell.

Everything will sell for the right price, and obviously £5000 isn’t the right price for these flats.

Some properties won't sell for any price though if the cost of making them habitable exceeds the price they would sell for having been done up.

Don’t do anything except make it as clean and decluttered as possible. I’ve bought over 20 properties and slapping a coat of paint is not going to do anything. But make it clean, make sure the front is free of weeds and rubbish bins and price it right.

The only thing that would worry me is be the new external brickwork being needed as recladding a house is a big deal so I would try to get whatever that is sorted before selling. Just making the inside really clean, washing the walls and removing scuff marks level of clean can really help or you may want to give it a lick of fresh paint inside your house. Also make all of the beds properly with ironed linen because it is more appealing.

This was 25 years ago, so a very different market, but we sold our first home due to an unexpected relocation. It was in a pretty poor state of repair when we bought it, and we hadn't done much to it. We expected problems selling, but it seemed to attract the people who were after a bargain. In the end we had 3 buyers, and went for best and final offers.
Just price accordingly. It's a buyer's market now, but people are still after a bargain - even if it needs work, if it looks ok to move into, people will be interested.

This is probably not a helpful line of advice for the OP who is presumably hoping to sell at what she considers to be a reasonable figure rather than fire-sale price.

It’s the garden walls that need doing. Not the house itself.

No, there is a level of being shit that falling below means there is no demand, someone else has said that flats in their town were 5k, absolutely bonkers cheap in the context of the UK property bubble, yet they took a while to sell, why keep pretending that just because something is a HOUSE and CHEAP there will be thousands of people gagging to buy it no matter what state it is in or how bad the surrounding area?

It is not realistic or helpful in any context, that sort of demand just doesn"t exist.

No need to take a crack at me, I’m not endorsing her silly advice.

In the words of Basil Fawlty, please try to understand before one of us dies.

In the flat example the £5000 price is obviously still too high. If the price was £1 then they would sell more quickly. Everything has its price.

I agree. The house I’m trying to sell is empty (so zero clutter), in a good area, well priced (£20k less than the 2 identical houses for sale in the same street), chain free, structurally sound, but needs painting and new carpets. Every single viewing have said they don’t want “so much work”. It seems like everyone at the moment wants move-in ready.