Update Your Kitchen Before Selling Your Home

The Housing Market is still Tough for Sellers

With finance executives around the world clinging onto any piece of evidence that might indicate the worst of the credit crunch is behind us, the first signs of a recovery are bound to receive wide exposure in the press. The man in the street can be forgiven for taking these messages the wrong way though as news that causes change in stock markets can take a very long time to filter through to normal commercial channels. Markets react to news as predictions of future events and price forward accordingly but for something like the housing market, fundamentals are very closely linked to reality.

Take the situation with the housing market in the UK at the moment. Things have been virtually stalled now for well over a year with property transactions at a forty year low. There must be plenty of people who would like to move home but viewed the current situation with caution and have decided to postpone any house move.

More recently it appears that the banking industry has uncovered all of its skeletons and the reports of toxic debts now seem to have been aired. So lending should be starting to get back on track, however with base rates still extremely low the mortgage lenders are unsure how to price their products and are also acting with caution.

You may have noticed an increase in the number of for sale boards outsides home in the past month or two; yet completed transactions are still very low. There are a number of possible explanations for this.

Sellers are perhaps failing to realise the drop in house price levels that has occurred over the past two years. Some experts claim that valuations are on average 20% lower than the previous high, so if sellers are holding out for offers that are close to those highs, then sales are not going to happen. That could create a situation where there are plenty of sellers but just a few determined buyers, which in turn makes those buyers very hard to please. With a wide choice of properties to consider that house that sells will have to be better than many others on the market - a situation very different from recent years when buyers were scrambling to get on the ever more expensive property ladder. The days of just putting your property up for sale and finding a buyer within a week are long gone.

Now the property that sells quickly well have been very well prepared and accurately priced. The vendor will have worked hard to remove any potential obstacle to the sale. Any overdue maintenance jobs will have been completed, perhaps the property will have been redecorated where required, gardens and exterior areas will be tidy and even some long overdue renovations, like a kitchen makeover, could have been undertaken.

Sellers typically baulk at spending any significant money on a property they are about to leave but sometimes a little careful investment can pay dividends. There is obviously no point in spending money on something like a conservatory that some buyers may not value, but improving one of the core aspects of property can work out to be a wise investment.

Updating an ageing bathroom is one such amendment that most buyers will appreciate as will making a garage secure and usable. Any rotting windows should be replaced and things like roof repairs are unquestionably mandatory. In the case of a tired and dated kitchen there are several options to be looked at.

A messy dirty kitchen will turn most buyers right off, so sellers should at least make sure theirs is fresh and tidy. The next stage would be to repaint walls and ceilings and consider a new floor covering if required. Good looking floor surfaces can be bought and fitted reasonably cheaply now without too much inconvenience. Short of ripping out and replacing a whole kitchen, an interim measure would be to look at changing doors and possible work surfaces.

Style and fashion in kitchens change quickly and what may have seemed a modern look twenty years ago can now be very unattractive. Changing all the doors and drawer fronts in a kitchen may seem like a big job but in fact it is surprisingly easy these days. Specialist companies can manufacture to order any size and style of kitchen door or drawer front within a short timeframe. Ordering can be done online and, with just a few hours work, a tired kitchen can be completely transformed.

So when competing with a high volume of other properties for just a few discerning buyers, a property has to be almost perfect to win the battle. A few hundred pounds invested before putting a property on the market can make the difference between achieving an asking price or having to discount significantly to achieve a sale. Spent wisely, that money can easily be recouped and a long drawn out selling cycle avoided. null