Selling a house

[Choco88]

So we’re hoping to get our house on the market in the next month or so. We’re in the midst of a massive clear out, I also plan to replace the living room carpet (massive burn mark from dropping the iron), paint bathroom ceiling (damp patch) and reseal the bath/fix dripping tap.

My mum thinks we need to paint the whole house, do you think this is really necessary? We haven’t decorated other than the kids rooms in about 5 years so it could do with a refresh (scuffs on skirting boards, paint peeling on bannister etc) but I really cba to paint the whole house.
Any advice/must dos when selling would be appreciated

 

[BelleAmie]

Personally I wouldn’t worry - most people will want to redecorate when they move in to a new house

 

[judgejohndeed]

I would do the refreshing, the damp patch, and the sealing of the bath - but I would definitely not paint the whole house or replace the carpet. You’re literally just burning money, most people will get in and change those things anyway.

 

[Hairraiser]

I put my house on the market yesterday & already got 4 viewings booked in. I’m trying not to get too excited too soon

I was the same as you, panicking about repainting rooms, carpets etc.But so many people have said not to bother, just leave It as it is. Potential buyers will put their own mark on it anyway. As long as it shows it’s full potential in terms of space, and also how clean the house is can make a difference, it shows it’s a well looked after home.

 

[Snippysnips]

My folks have sold twice, years apart, what helped us was having minimal stuff in the house, the more cluttered it was the more is seemed to put people off, obvs they wouldn't be getting our crap lol but I think it still puts the image in their head that it's a small cluttered home, so we made sure to have minimal stuff out, sofa, TV unit, TV, maybe a unit or two etc, everything else was boxed away, thankfully we were lucky the house had a garage that we could store most things but we had a family member help with stuff we didn't want in the garage, also what helped was having neutral colours on the walls, it was a pain painting an taking wallpaper down but most people don't want to walk into a home and the first thing they think is they will need to paint the place, so we went with creams, grays etc all four walls, if you already have a light colour on all four walls it would be fine as well, strong deep colours not only make it look small an dark but most people will be put off, I've seen some houses where the walls were fusha pink or bright orange an walked out thinking the hell with this everything else was mostly just scrubbed up a bit, skirting washed down, we rented one of those carpet cleaner things to scrub up the carpet, didn't cost much an brought the carpets up like new

 

[Bobbleowl90]

Throw a rug over the burn mark. Don’t replace the whole carpet.

 

[Snippysnips]

Throw a rug over the burn mark. Don’t replace the whole carpet.

I wouldn't really advise that, it's being dishonest an new buyers have a time limit where they can replace damaged things that haven't been mentioned an charge the original home owners for it, the new owners could buy the most expensive carpet an end up charging it, I'd just go for a very cheap carpet an replace it, it would then be up to the new owners if they wanted to keep it or not but they wouldn't be able to charge for it since there was nothing wrong

 

[Bobbleowl90]

I wouldn't really advise that, it's being dishonest an new buyers have a time limit where they can replace damaged things that haven't been mentioned an charge the original home owners for it, the new owners could buy the most expensive carpet an end up charging it, I'd just go for a very cheap carpet an replace it, it would then be up to the new owners if they wanted to keep it or not but they wouldn't be able to charge for it since there was nothing wrong

It’s what our sellers did 🥲

 

[Snippysnips]

It’s what our sellers did 🥲

Sorry to hear that, you would have been in your right to charge them for a new carpet for being sneaky at hiding that, I can't remeber as it was years ago now if it's 4 weeks or 6 weeks after selling you have that time frame to charge anything wrong that was hidden or not mentioned

It happened to us when we sold our first home, we knew it needed some work done an we had mentioned everything it needed minis one thing that we had forgotten about, they wanted a chunk off the asking price so we took around 8k off it (which was alot back then) we needed to sell fast as we already had another place lined up an they assured us they were definitely buyers, so we took the 8k off under them knowing it was to fix the issues, few weeks later after we were in our new home we get a bill through the door, they wanted to charge us for the thing we hadn't mentioned, it ended up in court as we refused to pay since the price being taken off was part of the deal to fix things, thankfully we won the case as the judge agreed the 8k was more than enough to fix the issues even the one we had forgotten, in total I believe the issues wouldn't have cost much more than 2k, maybe 3k if they went expensive

 

[Choco88]

Thanks for the reply’s everyone really helpful. I’m glad you agree it’s not worth redecorating. Property seems to be selling within a week in my area so I’m hoping for a quick sale.

I put my house on the market yesterday & already got 4 viewings booked in. I’m trying not to get too excited too soon

I was the same as you, panicking about repainting rooms, carpets etc.But so many people have said not to bother, just leave It as it is. Potential buyers will put their own mark on it anyway. As long as it shows it’s full potential in terms of space, and also how clean the house is can make a difference, it shows it’s a well looked after home.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a smooth sale for you Hairraiser please let us know how you get on

 

[Hairraiser]

Thanks for the reply’s everyone really helpful. I’m glad you agree it’s not worth redecorating. Property seems to be selling within a week in my area so I’m hoping for a quick sale.


I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a smooth sale for you Hairraiser please let us know how you get on

Thank you, And the same to you ! It’s not a straight forward process so all the best!
it’s like that near where I live too, we viewed a house on Thursday that had on gone on the market Tuesday & it has already SSTC. So I’m really hoping that ours does the same
Tbh finding a property might be the hardest part

 

[Rippedjeanmaybe]

We are looking to sell ours after our wedding in October.

At the moment our biggest job is fixing our bedroom ceiling. One of the boards is hanging down slightly, so that will need to be re done and then we will just need to repaint the room as there was a damp patch on that wall.

other than that, we aren’t doing much.

we have some slit marks in our bedroom carpet from when my fiancés dad cut something with a knife over it… it’s under the bed, so you can’t see it, but I’m debating what to do with it. Personally I always change carpets straight away in a new home so a hidden mark in a carpet wouldn’t bother me, but it might other people.

 

[Choco88]

Thank you, And the same to you ! It’s not a straight forward process so all the best!
it’s like that near where I live too, we viewed a house on Thursday that had on gone on the market Tuesday & it has already SSTC. So I’m really hoping that ours does the same
Tbh finding a property might be the hardest part

we’ve seen a property we like, we haven’t viewed it yet but I’ve watched a video tour online and drove past and it looks nice. It’s been on the market 2 months which is making me wonder what’s wrong with it as other houses seem to be selling much quicker. The only thing I can think of is that it’s about £10k overpriced.

We are looking to sell ours after our wedding in October.

At the moment our biggest job is fixing our bedroom ceiling. One of the boards is hanging down slightly, so that will need to be re done and then we will just need to repaint the room as there was a damp patch on that wall.

other than that, we aren’t doing much.

we have some slit marks in our bedroom carpet from when my fiancés dad cut something with a knife over it… it’s under the bed, so you can’t see it, but I’m debating what to do with it. Personally I always change carpets straight away in a new home so a hidden mark in a carpet wouldn’t bother me, but it might other people.

Yeah I would personally replace all carpets. Good luck with your sale when the time comes and the wedding of course

 

[bcfc999]

I'm in the process of buying and something that's slowing us down is that the seller doesn't seem to have got all the certificates to hand - gas, electric, boiler etc. So definitely make sure you have all your documents together for a quick sale good luck!

 

[Choco88]

I'm in the process of buying and something that's slowing us down is that the seller doesn't seem to have got all the certificates to hand - gas, electric, boiler etc. So definitely make sure you have all your documents together for a quick sale good luck!

great tip thank you

 

[Rippedjeanmaybe]

Thank you, And the same to you ! It’s not a straight forward process so all the best!
it’s like that near where I live too, we viewed a house on Thursday that had on gone on the market Tuesday & it has already SSTC. So I’m really hoping that ours does the same
Tbh finding a property might be the hardest part

Finding a property for us is going to be the most difficult bit for sure! We live in a small village in the north west and it’s a really popular village to live in. House prices are a little steep here compared to the areas around us and when houses come up for sale they get sold almost instantly! I’m just hoping we don’t have to wait too long to find what we want !

 

[rubyred66]

In my experience, giving the house a little refresh for sale can add some money onto the home.

 

[JoeBloggs]

Sorry to hear that, you would have been in your right to charge them for a new carpet for being sneaky at hiding that, I can't remeber as it was years ago now if it's 4 weeks or 6 weeks after selling you have that time frame to charge anything wrong that was hidden or not mentioned

I don't believe a mark on a carpet would count. While I think making the house look presentable, I wouldn't go out of your way to spend loads of money and time. I personally would seek the opinion of the estate agent, it depends on the market. Are people desperate in the area and therefore not that bothered or is the market slow and people are being picky and therefore you need to make your house stand out.

 

[Sunflower91]

I’ve just bought a house after looking for quite a while and even though it was already freshly painted, I’ve re-painted it to something my taste. I never really paid attention to the paint work so wouldn’t worry about getting it all painted. But one thing that used to put me off little was things like holes in the wall - something easily fixed but when looking for a house it was something that felt a lot bigger than it was. Selling point for me was the potential something had to become a home and a general home feel.

Something that almost made me drop out was the estate agent (not a fan of the best and final offer thing- I went in with my serious offer and it made the acceptance process 2 weeks longer than it needed to be) and the lack of documentation for things like the boiler. They actually refused to have it serviced so now it has no warranty, but also the back and forth of solicitors as a result of this was around 3 weeks.

 

[Choco88]

I don't believe a mark on a carpet would count. While I think making the house look presentable, I wouldn't go out of your way to spend loads of money and time. I personally would seek the opinion of the estate agent, it depends on the market. Are people desperate in the area and therefore not that bothered or is the market slow and people are being picky and therefore you need to make your house stand out.

the Market is flooded with 2 bed new builds in this area. Houses like mine (3 bed 1940s semi) don’t come up as often so tend to sell quickly. My next door neighbours house was on the market this time last year and it sold within a month . It needed a lot of work as it belonged to an elderly lady (think avocado bathroom suite,wood chip wallpaper everywhere, back boiler etc).

I’ve just bought a house after looking for quite a while and even though it was already freshly painted, I’ve re-painted it to something my taste. I never really paid attention to the paint work so wouldn’t worry about getting it all painted. But one thing that used to put me off little was things like holes in the wall - something easily fixed but when looking for a house it was something that felt a lot bigger than it was. Selling point for me was the potential something had to become a home and a general home feel.

Something that almost made me drop out was the estate agent (not a fan of the best and final offer thing- I went in with my serious offer and it made the acceptance process 2 weeks longer than it needed to be) and the lack of documentation for things like the boiler. They actually refused to have it serviced so now it has no warranty, but also the back and forth of solicitors as a result of this was around 3 weeks.

thank you that really helps, I hope you’re enjoying your new home