Should You Bother Sprucing Up Your Kitchen When Selling Your House?

We all have heard it – kitchen and bathrooms sell houses! This is widely known, but yet we have received often comments from home sellers such as:

 

• The kitchen is so outdated that we would have to put a completely new kitchen in. We’d rather have the home buyer do that and do it to their taste.
• Updating my kitchen is way too expensive. It is not worth doing it.
• This is too much work, I don’t want to do it anymore, now that I am moving out.

 

Here is an example of such a kitchen (before):

 

 

What would a home buyer think when seeing a house with an outdated kitchen?

 

• This is not livable for me. I will have to immediately update this kitchen before I even move in here.
• This will cost me $30,000 to $45,000 that I have to immediately spend right after I just made my single most expenditure.
• How long will it take me to get this fixed. I am not sure I can live in here for that long without having a kitchen. I have kids to feed and to prepare family dinners right away when moving in. Where will I be able to do that when the kitchen is under construction? What is the food take out cost in addition to the renovation cost?
• This is too much hassle for me. I ‘d rather look for a house with a decent kitchen.
• If this kitchen is already not well maintained, I assume the rest of the house also has not been updated as well. This house will be a money pit. Let me see the next listing in this market area.

 

With 92% of home buyers looking online first to decide which properties to visit, it will be hard to get buyers to even come to visit your house if the kitchen does not look updated.

 

So, should you bother sprucing up your kitchen when selling your house?

 

The answer is absolutely! In most cases, if your cabinet bones are in decent shape, there are many ways to give your kitchen an updated look without breaking the bank and going through the hassle and expense of installing a completely new kitchen. The goal with updating and staging an outdated kitchen is to show buyers that they can comfortably move into the house without having to immediately replace the kitchen. We want to show buyers that they can move in and live here for quite some time until they have the money to invest into a new kitchen.

 

Don’t forget that typically the house is a home buyer’s single largest purchase in their lives – it takes them a while to financially recover to be able to invest in major projects such as kitchen updates.

 

Houses with nice kitchen and updated appliances sell faster and for a higher price. Knowing where to invest in for getting the highest return on investment in a kitchen update is key to the success when preparing a home for sale to sell fast and at the top dollar.

 

Birgit Anich Staging & Interiors has prepared many kitchen in Fairfield county Connecticut for sale to stand out from the competition and to sell faster. Here are some examples of our before and after kitchen photos:

 

 

 

 

About the Author: Birgit Anich is the President and Creative Director of Birgit Anich Staging & Interiors one of the most innovative real estate staging and design firms in Fairfield County, CT. Our distinctive approach is creating a lifestyle experience that sells homes fast and at the maximum price. Birgit’s focus is working with home sellers and their real estate agents to prepare their property to appeal to the most likely buyers. As Certified Advanced Stagers, trained by HGTV star Matthew Finlason, Birgit Anich Staging and Interiors transforms a property into a buyer’s dream using Targeted Lifestyle Marketing Techniques.

Birgit also won the most prestegious awards in the Staging Industry - Regional and National Awards of Rookie Stager of the Year by RESA.

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