Selling-how important is decor etc

hairyslug

We are selling my parents house. It's in, what I would call, an expensive area, our estate agent has estimated 480-510. The average 4 bed would be around 600. The difference being that our house has quite dated decor and has not been maintained well, there is some wallpaper pealing and the kitchen has seen better days (there are a few other small things around the house but nothing serious)

I know people will want to decorate themselves (we bought 6 months ago and the 1st thing we did was paint the place) but how much does it effect the price of a house. We have ourselves, painted it in magnolia just to keep in neutral but when I compare it to the other houses in the area, ours is really lacking something.

Eric Cartman

neutral paint colours, neutral carpets and a bit of ikea trendy furniture can do wonders, 5k of an investment could easily get you 25k back.

Its very hard for some people to visualise how a house will look after it's done up , and theres a premium for turnkey houses.

Fian

Eric Cartman wrote: »

neutral paint colours, neutral carpets and a bit of ikea trendy furniture can do wonders, 5k of an investment could easily get you 25k back.

Its very hard for some people to visualise how a house will look after it's done up , and theres a premium for turnkey houses.

By the same token as a buyer you should be delighted if you are viewing a house that is dirty or tatty. Cosmetic changes / modernisation can easily be made after you buy it, normally at a fraction of the reduction in sale price caused by flaking paint, grotty furniture, crappy lino/carpets etc.

A turnkey condition house is the last one you should want, it is the grotty houses that are the exciting finds.

Parchment

As someone who viewed countless properties over the past 1.5 years - decor never bothered us. What would have been a concern for us would be structural issues, damp and a house that was not well cared for.

Most people who view second-hand houses can see past decor that they dont like. If they cant - they should buy a new house!

ThisRegard

Fian wrote: »

By the same token as a buyer you should be delighted if you are viewing a house that is dirty or tatty. Cosmetic changes / modernisation can easily be made after you buy it, normally at a fraction of the reduction in sale price caused by flaking paint, grotty furniture, crappy lino/carpets etc.

A turnkey condition house is the last one you should want, it is the grotty houses that are the exciting finds.

Not for me anyway. We viewed a few over the summer that appeared to be basically abandoned, not a skirting board scrubbed or touched up, black mold left around the edges of patio doors etc. We, and many, don't want a project to have to undertake. I found it off putting viewing grubby houses.

As for the OP, it seems like a house which will require some work anyway which is a different story.

Eric Cartman

the one biggest change that will definitely help.
If you are selling a house with one of those awful avocado/peach/blue bathroom suites, do up the damn bathroom. 100% you'll get your money back as any right minded individual will be removing that awful tat anyway. A modern bathroom will make a lot of people overlook some other rooms being tatty as at least they can live there while renovating.

newacc2015

First thing to do is remove anything personal from it ie photos, newspapers, books etc. You want someone to visualise themselves in this house as their house, not someone elses house that could be theirs.

The garden is always neglected by people. Tidy up the lawns, scrubs and plant a few hundred worth of plants. You could easily keep them in pots to take to your own house afterwards.

Get rid of any old wall paper. Go to a fancy paint shop and ask for their suggestions on colour. Then go to a trade paint shop(they are open to the public ) and ask for the fancy paint to be colour matched to a generic cheaper brand. It wont be perfect, but it will be pretty close. Go for light tones like grey, modern creams and soft blues. Dont go for the same colour through out. Plain white and magnolia etc a bit student accommodation circa 2004

If the furniture is ****ty, get rid of it. No one wants to be looking at a sofa that is avocado green.

This house is well staged for selling

https://www.myhome.ie/residential/brochure/8-richmond-mews-richmond-hill-rathmines-dublin-6/3780273?RegionId=1446&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=700000&MinBeds=&MaxBeds=&MinSize=&MaxSize=&MinBathrooms=&MinEnergyRating=&Query=&PreSixtyThree=false&Page=&view=list

quadrifoglio verde

Op, a lick of paint will work wonders for the house. It will lift the house and give a fresh well maintained impression.
Will it increase the asking price, perhaps, perhaps not, but what it will do will make the sale easier. When people are looking at adverts for houses, they're imagining themselves living there. It's a lot easier to imagine that lifestyle in something clean, fresh and clutter free.

The house below was rented by my close friends until recently. It was painted a cream/yellow colour throughout. A lick of paint, a mirror or two in some of the rooms and minimal furniture has really lifted the place.

https://www.dng.ie/residential/brochure/76-harolds-cross-road-harold-s-cross-dublin-6/1796894

The kitchen island lacks stools, 2 were broken so they just got rid if them and left them stool free. It also makes the kitchen look bigger.
The middle room was quite dark and gloomy, change of paint colour and the lamp I'm the corner lifts it.

Spend a little and you'll get it back, either through a quicker sale or a higher price.

I wouldn't go too mad, but would agree with others if the bathroom is green or pink, you'll replace it cheaply and remember you're selling a lifestyle. First impressions really do count and a fresh, clean and clutter free house will get you viewings, which will get the offers

quadrifoglio verde

Fian wrote: »

By the same token as a buyer you should be delighted if you are viewing a house that is dirty or tatty. Cosmetic changes / modernisation can easily be made after you buy it, normally at a fraction of the reduction in sale price caused by flaking paint, grotty furniture, crappy lino/carpets etc.

A turnkey condition house is the last one you should want, it is the grotty houses that are the exciting finds.

Actually OP this is the strongest reason so far as to why you should throw a few Bob at it

screamer

Most people don't want the hassle of redecorating a whole house especially not after dropping close to half a million Euro on it. If you've ever watched any house selling programmes you'd see that they clear out the clutter paint in neutral tones and put down cheap fresh carpet to make the houses more saleable.
Personally id not mind painting a room but no way a whole house and as for stripping wallpaper and repainting - not a chance id do it. I'd expect the wallpaper to be modern and pristine or replaced with paint if I were buying the house.

antoinolachtnai

The main thing is to

- clear everything out,

- have the gardens neat (cut back basically)

- have the house clean

- make the house feel lived in and welcome (basically a bit of furniture, not fancy furniture just something to make it feel like a home)

- painting, decorating

- kitchens and bathrooms

In the order above.

It is just not worth your while investing time and money in decorating the place beyond something very basic. Decide how much you want to spend in conjunction with the estate agent and stick to it.

It is fine to say that it is just cosmetic. Removing old wallpaper can be pretty hard work. It can open up new problems, for instance if the plaster comes away with the paper. Then you are into more expense to get the whole thing presentable again.

Sometimes hastily decorated houses are suspicious. There can be efforts to cover things up. I remember one house with a fancy job done in the bedroom. The mistake they made was making everything too shiny. The gloss-varnish on the floorboards showed a significant bow.

Unless you invest tens of thousands, this house is probably still going to be a bit of a doer-upper. That is part of the appeal with these houses for some purchasers. If it is a 500k house, the purchaser might want to put a 10k kitchen in it as part of 50 or 100k of investment. I wouldn't do that, and probably neither would you, but everyone has their own idea. People sometimes want to extend right away and rip everything to pieces in the process. My neighbours are investing 100k in the house they just bought. Their predecessor thought he was selling the house to them in marvellous, turnkey condition. They just had different ideas.

There is certainly a market for finished houses that look great, but you are not going to be in that market even if you spend ten grand.

I would choose an estate agent who is knowledgeable about the market and listen to their guidance.

hairyslug

Our garden has been cleared, the house will be empty bar a suite of furniture, kitchen table and chairs and a bed. The house has been painted near enough throughout but it was done on a budget and (in my opinion) looks so.
We are limited in what we can spend to prepare the house, I am joint executor and there are an additional 2 parties who have an input, none of these have any experience in the Irish market and want maximum return for minimum input. I just keep looking at other houses in the area, from 530k up to 800k and the big difference (and I understand that everyone will like different things) is that they have a lot of natural light. Our house is dark, no matter what we do.

In our own experience, we initially walked away from the house we bought because is was not well presented so I'm afraid that this will turn away a lot of buyers purely down to a few small details.

antoinolachtnai

There just isn't that much for sale. People might walk away, but they will also often come back. I wouldn't worry that much about it.

If the fundamental weakest point of the house is a lack of natural light, I would not waste too much money on other things. Someone else might decide to open things up and sort this out. It is up to them. (You can brighten up a dark house pretty well with artificial lighting these days but it is not worth spending a lot of money on. Maybe it is worth buying a few cheap uplighters to make the place feel a bit brighter for showings.

Doing the place up properly would be a lot of effort for you. I imagine you would only be looking at getting about one-third of any gain that arose from the work. The work would also delay the sale. So there is not a lot of gain for you personally in doing the place up.