It’s a quandary many homeowners face when they decide to sell their house. Should they put their home on the market as is, flaws and all, or is it better to spend money making it more appealing to potential buyers, at the risk of overcapitalising?
Unfortunately there’s no magic formula, says real estate agent Cathy Roselli. “It is not a case of telling people something like they should spend up to 10 per cent of the value of their home doing it up,” says Roselli, of Ray White in Auckland.
“You can’t take the broad brush approach. It depends on the home itself and a variety of other factors, such as what the market is doing,”
In her 28 years’ selling properties, she has come across many examples of people who’ve poured time, effort and money into sprucing up their home for sale, only to find themselves out of pocket because they haven’t recouped that outlay when the property sells.
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Then there are those who would have achieved a far better price — or not been left with a house languishing on the market — if they had just gone to the expense of carrying out a few crucial jobs.
“The problem for many owners is that they don’t know which way to go. That’s why it’s important to get advice as soon as you start thinking about selling.”
Unlike vendors, who tend to have strong feelings about their home, agents are able to look at the property from a dispassionate perspective.
“When I first go into a home, I walk through looking at it objectively and seeing what potential purchasers will be looking at it,” says Roselli. “I’m looking for things that might distract people from buying it and that can be easily fixed.”
For example, peeling paint will put people off, but it may be necessary only to remedy the affected areas, rather than painting the whole house. “In some cases, doing something like giving tired, dirty looking ceilings a fresh coat of paint can make a huge difference,” says Roselli.
Major issues such as leaking ceilings should be dealt with — unless you’re selling the house as a do-up — and a cardinal rule is to make sure your home is clean, tidy and clutter-free. “Less is always more,” she advises.
One mistake vendors tend to make is getting carried away with extensive changes such as updating bathrooms and kitchens.
“Putting in a new kitchen can be very expensive. But doing it might not make any difference to the price you get. Many buyers don’t mind kitchens that are old if they look loved and well-cared for. And there’s a chance they may want to put in their own kitchen, so you could be spending a fortune only for someone to pull it out.”
Roselli once advised a client whose kitchen was not in great shape to replace the cupboard doors but do nothing else.
“They could have gone in and done the whole kitchen, but putting in new doors in place of ones that had been thrashed over the years was enough. It changed the whole look of the kitchen and it wasn’t expensive.”
Bathrooms can also prove costly to updateand often making over the room from head-to-toe is overkill, says Abi Wisnewski-Khan of Karlek Interiors.
Wisnewski-Khan’s business now includes making over homes to sell. Having done up and sold numerous homes, she has an eye for what puts buyers off, and what appeals to them.
In one Auckland home she tackled, the owners were concerned that a bathroom with 1970s-style diagonal tongue-and-groove wooden panelling would distract from the rest of the house.
But rather than advising them to rip out the wood, tile the room and put in new fittings, she suggested they instead draw people’s attention to a striking clawfoot bath.
Other changes she made, including tidying the front garden and painting the front door and letterbox to give better curb appeal, contributed to it selling for $500,000 above the highest appraisal.
She’s seen cases where people have fallen into the trap of thinking they need to make their homes perfect before putting them on the market.
“They get on a treadmill where they fix or paint one thing and then, because they’ve done that, they think they need to do another.
“Then the next thing you know, they’ve spent a fortune. It’s because they get emotional when it’s their house and they can’t stand back and see the big picture.
“That’s where advice comes in useful.”
