If you’re thinking about selling your home in the next couple of years, you’ll probably already be thinking about ways in which you can make your home more attractive to a potential buyer. There are a number of ways in which you can improve the appeal of your home and even increase the asking price. You may be surprised to learn that making your kitchen more attractive doesn’t necessarily mean spending a considerable amount of money on a complete refit.
In this article, we’ll tackle the question ‘does renovating a kitchen add value to your home?’
Adding value to your home
There are several things that a buyer is looking at when they view a property, and, in most cases, a potential buyer will pay close attention to the bathroom and the kitchen.
The simple reason for this is that, while dodgy decor in the living room can generally be remedied easily and cheaply, updating a kitchen or bathroom usually requires more work and financial investment. Because of this, you may want to take a closer look at these two rooms before putting your house up for sale.
Should I renovate my kitchen?
This all depends on what you’re hoping to achieve and, in this section, we’ll explore this further:
When should you renovate your kitchen
- Tired/damaged decor – If your kitchen looks scruffy or outdated, this may be off-putting to potential buyers. Try to look at your kitchen through a buyer’s eyes – if it doesn’t look great, a makeover may help to make it more saleable.
- Mismatched decor/appliances – When kitchen decor and appliances have been updated on an ad-hoc basis, resulting in a ‘patchwork’ aesthetic. In most cases, this can be updated quickly and easily through a kitchen makeover, with no need for a costly and disruptive refit.
When you shouldn’t renovate your kitchen
- Recently renovated – If your kitchen has been updated in the last five years, there is usually no need to renovate.
- Bright and neutral – If your existing decor is clean and neutral, you shouldn’t need to invest in a renovation.
Does renovating the kitchen add value?
In some cases, renovating your kitchen can add up to 10% to the value of your home, but this is all down to proportion. For example, if your home is worth £500,000 and you’re planning on spending £10,000 on renovating your kitchen, this would be a worthwhile investment. If, however, your home is only worth £150,000 and you’re spending the same amount on renovation, you may not add perceivable value to the property.
Suppose you do feel that your kitchen could do with being updated but don’t have the budget to hire an expensive professional. In that case, it’s well worth checking out tutorials on YouTube to figure out whether you will be able to complete simple renovations by yourself. While this can be a good option for simple updates, do bear in mind that bad or shoddy workmanship can negatively impact the value of your home.
Is there another way?
If your kitchen appliances and decor are in reasonably good condition, i.e. not damaged, tatty or mismatched, you don’t necessarily have to fork out for a complete renovation. In many cases, you can give your kitchen a bit of a facelift without breaking the bank. Why not try:
- Repaint kitchen walls in a light or bright shade to create the illusion of space
- Update tired doors, drawer fronts and related panels. There’s absolutely no need to commit to an entirely new kitchen.
- Replace your worktops; you can expect to increase the appeal and, therefore, the price of your home.
- Improve storage to make the kitchen look neater and more spacious
- Update kitchen lighting to accentuate the positive and play down the negative
- Replace tired flooring with modern tiles or linoleum. This will usually be inexpensive, particularly if you have a small or galley kitchen.
We can replace a number of features in your kitchen, including worktops and doors, to give the impression of a brand new kitchen for a fraction of the cost. If you spend a fair amount of your time cooking and baking, your worktops will tend, after a while, to become stained and scratched, which can look unsightly and often put off potential buyers.
It’s important to remember that viewers will not spend hours in the kitchen inspecting every nook and cranny. Simply ensuring that your kitchen is clean, tidy, bright and modern should be enough to give that all-important first impression. First impressions really do count, and by replacing tired doors, drawers and worktops, you may be able to add significant value to your home without spending a fortune. We work with what you’ve got to make the most of your kitchen, including creating the illusion of space with colour and clever design.
Unlike a completely new full kitchen, our kitchen makeovers will usually take only one or two days to complete and will make minimal mess. Our qualified and fully insured team will swoop in like a gang of kitchen ninjas to make your kitchen look new, however big or small.
We have hundreds of style and colour options to choose from to allow you to make your design your own while adding value to your home when it comes to selling.
Conclusion
While it is true that renovating your kitchen can most definitely add value to your home, you do need to weigh up the cost and offset this against how much more you may reasonably be able to ask for your property. As we’ve highlighted in this article, in many cases, a bit of a spruce-up should be enough to make your kitchen more appealing to a buyer. However, suppose your kitchen looks dingy and outdated. In that case, you may need to seriously consider investing in a renovation not just to add value to your home but also to avoid putting off potential buyers.
When visiting your kitchen, prospective buyers will ask themselves if it’s going to need work, which will considerably increase their financial outlay when buying the house, as their thoughts will turn to the cost of installing a brand new kitchen.
In some instances, this may mean that the potential buyer may ask you for a price reduction on your property, using the argument that they feel they will have to spend X amount on renovating the kitchen once they move in. By hiring us to give your kitchen a makeover, you’ll get more bang for your buck as we can help to add value for a more modest investment, meaning more cash in your pocket to spend on your next home.
If you want to get your kitchen ready for its close-up, get in touch today to arrange a home visit with a free, no-obligation quote for transforming your kitchen. With Kitchen Makeovers, your pride and joy are in safe hands.
