How much to renovate before selling

[digbic]

My husband has inherited a one third share of a brick-built 1960’s 4 bedroom semi-detached family house in Woking, Surrey. The interior has not been touched for years so, although the building is sound, the existing fittings, décor and carpets are grim – old-fashioned and dirty.

He and his siblings all live miles away from the house and have little relevant local market knowledge and are mistrusting of asking advice of estate agents. They are unsure how far to go with renovating as they have no personal property market experience or quantifiable information regarding renovation. Could anyone help, please? Any information or advice will be gratefully received.

Items on the agenda are:

1) Whether to repaint throughout. (A family DIY task) About half has been done already, not to a high-class standard, but clean and bright.

2) Consider re-carpeting. Some rooms now have bare boards, the remainder have nasty dirty carpets or vinyl.

3) Consider demolishing a large, virtually derelict and extremely ugly make-shift lean-to at the side of the house, built onto the back of the garage. (Another family DIY task). Snag – no-one is quite sure what it stands on – some is earth, some is slabbed – who knows what else is under there?

4) Might it be worth considering leaving the lean-to in place? Would there be any mileage in doing that and trying for planning permission, for, say, a granny annexe, as a selling point?

5) Refurb bathroom and downstairs loo? (The kitchen is not so tatty but currently needs a new hob and white goods. What it really needs is a complete rebuild in a different space)

6) Rewire the entire house?

7) Tidy up the front garden to create a good first impression – where the lawn ought to be is just bare earth. (The back garden is pretty – excluding the afore-mentioned lean-to)

With thanks for any input – we are all complete novices and do not know where to start. Or rather, where to stop.

Jacqueline

[brian]

Personally, I would get quotes on all the costs required for each itemised work schedule, and then approach the other owners with this information.

It would then be the case of ensuring each party agrees, and then pays *upfront*, for the work required.

Alternatively, if one person were to shoulder all costs, then ensure a legal agreement that upon sale of the property, all costs incurred from renovating will be paid to this sole party first, and the remaining value then shared equally among all parties.

[Chris Gough]

Hi Jacqueline,

If it was me I would definitely be repainting the house throughout, get the front garden done up, and I probably would get carpeted the rooms that are bare. Ideally you want the house to be ready to move into at the cheapest cost to yourselves. The fact you live so far from it you don't want to be wasting loads of time driving back and forth and slogging you guts out. Ideally you would like to take a week off and just stick at it.

[builder manchester]

hi
to make all the jobs listed will cost you quite a lot.
it's good to do at least some of the jobs needed, to make it look nice. (painting, gardening)
the kitchen and the bathroom may need a lot of investment and sometimes the next landlords/owners may have different ideas about how they should look. some of them could prefer a discount at the selling price and make themselves these changes :-)

[MW234]

I would do it all - maybe Im a completist but if you think it should be done and you have lived there, someone new looking to buy their perfect home will likely think the same (and be listing, room needs painting, lean to has to go etc). Even if the price reflects work needed people are lazy and would rather buy something closer to their ideal first off.