Is It Worth Replacing the Kitchen Before You Sell?
What About the Kitchen?
Presenting your property well can vastly increase your sale price and get you a much quicker sale.
For those just joining, we've been talking about property preparation and smart tips for things you can do on a budget to move the needle, plus other common questions. See the links below.
17 years in this game with over 500 homes sold and more recently also renovating and selling our 4 rental properties has given us proven evidence on what works.
In terms of questions we're often asked, close behind 'should I paint and re-carpet?' is the question 'is it worth replacing the kitchen?'
There's a sliding scale of how far you might go on kitchens, at one end moving away from a buyer's allergic reaction to the current kitchen and at the other end having a kitchen someone can fall in love with, with a few good stops in-between. Here's our experience of what works financially and options depending on your budget:
Paint & handles
Here think a freshen-up & tidy. Seal and paint the cabinetry neutral and replace the cupboard & drawer handles. In one case we were missing a cupboard door and a drawer front and had a handyman make matching replacements.
Painter's tip: match the paint colour for the cabinets to the background, and the cabinets will recede visually and the kitchen will look bigger... magic!
Take a cupboard handle off and pop down to Mitre 10 or Bunnings, for the right spacing, and you'll be able to get a cheap bag of more modern replacements... brushed steel is always nice. We lined the cupboard shelves with an adhesive vinyl-wrap which gave a clean fresh look and did this for 3 of the 4 renovations... it's a no-brainer for a small outlay and mostly time.
Benchtops
There's two options here: the cheapest and fastest option is sealing and painting bench tops with the right paint system. Ask the hardware store guys about a heavy duty system which will stand up to water, knocks and scrubbing etc... a nice dark grey can pop on neutral cabinetry.
This is good for zhooshing something up a bit on a budget, recognising that a new owner will want to do a kitchen down the track but tidying it up so it's fresh and appears more modern (READ less in need of being immediately ripped out).
Or you can order new bench-tops and have them fitted. It will depend a bit on the condition of the top to start with, and your timeframe and budget, as to which way to go.
New kitchen drop-in
Here think a Mitre 10, Bunnings or PlaceMakers kitset kitchen and have a builder drop it in. By our last renovation I think we were getting a bit over it... with 3 renovations and sales already under our belts. Our builder suggested we drop a new kitchen in as everything else was looking so good he thought the property would then really come up and that warranted it.
The offending kitchen was one of those 90's era melamine kitchens, rather than older solid wood, where hinges inevitably wear out and the doors fall off. He could do it for $15k so we said let's back ourselves and take the bet.
It looked fabulous.
We used ListNow as vendors, a 'pay later marketing loan' which you pay back at sale time or within 6 months, to cover this extra cost. 12 offers and an outstanding premium sale price later and that was a bet that paid off.
Wow-factor or bespoke kitchens
We've looked at luxury and high quality kitchens and if you're in your dream home, or are an avid cook and will get great pleasure from it, and aren't likely to leave for years then go for it and enjoy it.
But as they generally cost north of $50k, with all the inevitable add-ons tending to take it up from there, if you're thinking of selling it just doesn't generally stack-up as you're spending multiples of the Bunnings version to tick the 'does it have a modern kitchen?' box. People can see it's better of course but they're unlikely to pay anywhere near the difference you've laid out for the fact that you have it, and you risk not getting all of your money back.
That same money would be far better spent on other aspects of property presentation where it could make a 4X return on investment.
It's not always clear how far to go on property presentation so it pays to get advice from people who've actually done it, as there's often clever fixes and work arounds that can save you money in sorting problems.
If you'd like to chat or confirm what difference things might make to increase or protect your price, or to sell more quickly, email or call (leonie.snook@harcourts.co.nz 027 518 0008). We can pop by for a quick look and tell you straight away what will and won't make financial sense and can often see smarter ways of dealing with issues.
No fuss, no sales pitch, no juniors, just service! Leonie & Steve
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