Selling your Home: Why Your Kitchen is All-important

If you want to sell your house, there’s an argument that you may have missed the window to achieve the optimal value for the property.

After the relentless price growth that defined 2016, this year has seen property values decline on a quarterly basis since January. In fact, November saw the average monthly property price decline by 0.1%, with Nationwide suggesting that vendors may struggle to sell their home for the same prices that were viable last year.

This means that vendors must have a clear focus when selling their home in 2017, as you look to develop a strategy that prioritises specific rooms and creates a compelling proposition for buyers. 

Selling your home: Why your Kitchen is Key 

Regardless of your precise strategy, it’s likely that creating a modern and appealing kitchen space is likely to be central to the accomplishment of your goals. According to recent research conducted by Property Rescue, this is the single most important room when it comes to making a positive first impression on potential buyers, as this is the very first thing that people look for when viewing a piece of real estate.

In fact, more than a third of people consider the kitchen to be a deal-breaker when choosing a home, as they want a modernised and functional space that requires little or no work. This consideration represented a clear priority too, with just 22% believing that the presence of a modernised bathroom is the single most influential factor.

A modern and visually attractive fireplace was also found to be one of the most important considerations for younger buyers and Millennials, but these increasingly influential demographics also maintained the importance of a newly refurbished kitchen.

The Issue of cost 

So why exactly is the kitchen so important to buyers? The main reason is the prevailing economic climate, which has seen inflation soar to nearly 3% while real wage growth has stagnated. This has squeezed the average households’ level of disposable income, meaning that many are unwilling to invest the £7,000 that is typically required to buy and install a new kitchen. 

As a result, we’ve seen buyer behaviour change in recent times, as individuals move away from the notion of investing in low-cost real estate as a long-term project and instead look to purchase properties that can serve as ready-made family homes. 

We should expect this trend to continue, particularly with the global macroeconomic climate continuing to depreciate and the cost of living rising at a disproportionate rate to earnings and savings rates. 

The Last Word 

The recent depreciation of house price growth is unlikely to change this state of affairs, as even struggling markets like the UK have still seen values rise by an average of £3,000 since the beginning of 2017. 

With this in mind, vendors need to pay close attention to the demands and behaviour of buyers, as this will help them to complete a quick and lucrative sale in the current climate.