Is it worth painting house exterior to sell?

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MileHighKiwi

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#227474 8-Jan-2018 19:54

We are planning to sell our house soon and are doing some small low cost jobs to get the place ready. It's a 3 bedroom 1950's house in Elderslea, Upper Hutt, fully renovated, a great family home.

The property has been appraised at between $470k - $490k. A 2 bedroom newly renovated house 6 doors down just sold for $501k.

Our house needs an exterior paint. About half the house is in good condition but the sunny side is in desperate need of paint.

To paint the whole house we're looking at $6-7k (good deal through a painter I know)

Do you think its worth painting? I think it might add $10k to the sale price but spending 6 to make 4 doesn't seem very worthwhile, and it adds 4 weeks to my timeline. We're not in a huge hurry but would prefer to sell sooner than later.

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#1932375 8-Jan-2018 20:01

Not worth it

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k1w1k1d

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#1932376 8-Jan-2018 20:04

What about just paint the sunny side?

Ask your real estate agent for advice.

timmmay

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#1932380 8-Jan-2018 20:12

It might cost someone else $12K to get it painted. A good strip or at least removing the loose paint, prime, paint of a house or even half a house is a decent job. It might make it easier to sell even if you don't get anything extra for it.

RunningMan

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#1932381 8-Jan-2018 20:17

Depends on the buyer - they may prefer to do it themselves and get the colour they want

SATTV

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#1932385 8-Jan-2018 20:28

It depends on what buyer you are after,

If you are after the DIY / flip market then leave it.

You said that inside was renovated so more likely after the move in ready market and would need to be done.

Another way of looking at it is you spend $7000 painting will you recover that amount on sale?

There are some no tangible arguments i.e. faster to sell if painted, there is something to be said for having 8 weeks of open homes over 16 weeks of open homes keeping it clean / tidy etc.

Your agent should be able to give you good advice. You could ask several agents advice, they are all after your business so will offer you some good ideas in the hope they get the listing.

Cheers

John

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Aredwood

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#1932459 8-Jan-2018 22:27

What is the condition of the rest of the house? Especially the inside. Fully renovated in the last year or so, and repainting the outside is the only thing left to do. Or fully renovated over 10 years ago, with nothing touched since.

Since you are able to get good pricing on painting work, it might be worthwhile getting the inside repainted as well. As the real estate agent how your current interior colour scheme compares to current trends.

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kryptonjohn

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#1932473 8-Jan-2018 22:56

If you have renovated the inside it makes sense to paint the outside.

Buyers who want to renovate won't buy your house as it's mostly done. Buyers who want a perfect house won't buy it because it needs painting.

Spending $7k to add $10k is worth $3k to you.

It's a no-brainer - paint it.

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#1932538 9-Jan-2018 09:05

Our first house didnt need painting, but the agent was like "spend $5k to do this that and the other to make it sell faster at decent price" (tidy up garden etc) - we spent a total of about $150 and got the same result.

Personally, I'd be reluctant to spend money on something you're trying to sell unless its dire.

Most realistic home buyers know they're never going to find a perfect property and usually have the expectation of spending some money to get it to the level they want.

Also lets say you do the paint work, hoping to get extra $10k, and at end of the day you end up with only an extra $2k. Not worth the bother/stress.

We were damn lucky with our first place, we were told "its a diamond in the rough", so were expecting a lot of work to be needed. When we viewed, we were like "umm whats wrong with it ?" - got an inspection and only things that the inspector found was a tiny bit of carpet lifting in a corner, some door frames were cracked and the kitchen needed some TLC because the previous owners had removed some cupboards etc so some painting was needed. Nothing else wrong. We sold 5 years later and all we had done was painted the kitchen, put in a garden path (and built a raised garden), leveled out one corner of the yard (retained with a 60cm high "wall"), "gibbed" 60% of the garage, laid some old carpet (with underlay) in there as well (became my "office"), dropped the side garage door down 30cm because you couldnt open it otherwise due to a roller garage door support blocking it.

When we sold, was only on the market for 3-4 weeks, and we got the price we wanted.

XPD / Gavin

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tdgeek

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#1932564 9-Jan-2018 09:15

kryptonjohn:

If you have renovated the inside it makes sense to paint the outside.

Buyers who want to renovate won't buy your house as it's mostly done. Buyers who want a perfect house won't buy it because it needs painting.

Spending $7k to add $10k is worth $3k to you.

It's a no-brainer - paint it.

Agree. It will look like new, and increase street appeal. When we sold recently, its street appeal. Wow, looks great. Spend 6 to make 4, over a few weeks? Ill have that investment! Off course you never will know whether it was worth it, but same as a car with chalky paint, vs one that's gleaming. To most buyers that means not having to consider the large cost of paint maintenance anytime soon, the not a cent to spend saying

itxtme

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#1932610 9-Jan-2018 10:29

I think people over estimate the doer-upper market, and this is a small fraction of possible target market. Equally developers/portfolio individuals aren't going to pay top dollar, they will pay up to the amount where the numbers make sense. Most people talk about DIY but actually would rather just move in and enjoy, and when no work is required they justify offering more and more to get the house.

Not sure what the market is like in Upper Hutt but if similar to Lower Hutt and Wellington people are paying crazy over. To get that result you have to make the house look the best you can without over capitalising. We had an excellent result with ours (40% above GV) a little while ago and from my perspective the key drivers to its sale was the work we did, as there were alternative properties on the market around us that didnt do as well but needed a lot of work.

My top suggestions

1) Fix notable problems (sounds like the sunny side of the house is included), things like damage to soffits etc. are easy fixes that make people concerned for how you looked after the house.

2) Tidy up innocuous things, this includes gardens but silly things like driveways and paths, waterblast these and suddenly the backyard looks a million bucks.

3) Declutter, and when you think you have decluttered, declutter some more.

I guess the main point of my post is that extra effort will definitely see a better result, and doing nothing or little will highly likely effect the price you get. In our case we worked out butts off for 1-2 months up to the sale, and during and it was definitely worth it to me.

Wash

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#1932808 9-Jan-2018 13:36

Since you've already renovated the interior, definitely paint the exterior.

When selling a house, you want a buyer that makes an emotional connection with the property. You want them to want your house, not settle for your house. To do that, you want the best first impression you can get and your first and second opportunities to make that impression are the marketing photos and when they arrive at the house for the first time. So you need the outside to be looking its absolute best.... super neat and tidy gardens, windows and exterior clean etc.

Then on the inside, definitely declutter (including in the hall cupboards, garage and wardrobes), rearrange/remove furniture etc to make sure the house feels clean, tidy and spacious (not small and cluttered). Then do things like make sure all the curtains are open, lights on, bins emptied and the house smelling good (scented candles, baking bread, whatever floats your boat).

It all definitely makes a difference and the general rule of thumb is that money spent on landscaping/the exterior is returned 2-3 times over at time of sale.

When we sold our house, we basically lived in a show home for the 3 weeks of marketing. The house was always spotlessly clean and tidy before we left in the morning so that if the agent needed to bring someone through, it was always looking its best.

Your agent should be advising you about all of this. If they're not telling you this stuff then you need a new agent!

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mattwnz

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#1932812 9-Jan-2018 13:40

If a buyer is going to see work needs to be done, that will either affect their decision to buy the property, or they will offer less to compensate for the work that needs to be done. People are generally lazy, and will also be comparing your house with new builds which don’t need work. Unless someone is buying it as a doer Upper, or buying it for the land. Also painting is part of normal maintenance, so it could indicate to the buyer that it hasn’t been well maintained. If you are trying to maximise the price you want, IMO it is a no brainer.

tdgeek

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#1932850 9-Jan-2018 13:57

mattwnz: If a buyer is going to see work needs to be done, that will either affect their decision to buy the property, or they will offer less to compensate for the work that needs to be done. People are generally lazy, and will also be comparing your house with new builds which don’t need work. Unless someone is buying it as a doer Upper, or buying it for the land. Also painting is part of normal maintenance, so it could indicate to the buyer that it hasn’t been well maintained. If you are trying to maximise the price you want, IMO it is a no brainer.

Very good point. When I worked on the place we sold recently, I made sure that point was ticked off everywhere, even little things. It percieves attention to detail, maintained properly, and care

MileHighKiwi

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#1933119 9-Jan-2018 19:31

Thanks for the replies. Some good advice here. Spoke with our agent and he said while it might only be a few grand at stake the first impression a newly painted house makes will probably help our house sell sooner. Now we have to tie down the painter and start date.

Cheers

Batman

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#1933121 9-Jan-2018 19:37

A coat of paint massively increases the house value. I'd do interior and exterior if I were you.

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