A quality kitchen could be the difference between your home selling or stagnating on the market while other similar properties are snapped up. It’s often said that the kitchen is the most important room in the home, acting as the focal point for the family and food preparation. It makes sense, then, that the kitchen would be the focal point for any buyer looking to purchase your property. In fact, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) have found that a new kitchen can add 4% more value to your home. So, why is this the case?
1. Kitchens feel like a daunting task for buyers
For many people, when they buy a home, they want to move in and settle with minimal fuss. There are some buyers looking for a project but, overall, people have busy lives and they’re searching for a property that’s as perfect as they can hope to find. This means that if they suddenly discover the kitchen is in a terrible state and they’re going to have to rip it all out, that may put them off the property entirely. While renovating your kitchen might be a necessary part of selling, it isn’t necessarily a component of the buying process and you may lose many potential buyers with a shabby kitchen.
2. Modern kitchens are hubs
Kitchens can be seen merely as functional but, more often, they are the centrepiece of a home. The kitchen is the room where meals are prepared and sometimes eaten, with many families spending considerable amounts of time in there together. Consequently, the kitchen not only needs to be welcoming, it also needs a design that allows the family to be around the room. This often takes the form of a centre island with stools or a table. In some kitchens, space restricts this, but there are often innovative ways to circumvent the problem and use light and décor to make the room feel bigger than it really is. In this way, you can retain the idea that the kitchen is the hub of the home.
3. Bigger kitchens are popular
Thanks to the hub factor mentioned above, bigger kitchens that allow food preparation alongside other activities are preferred by buyers. This may pose a problem for you if your kitchen is stuck in the back of a property with no room to move around and very little light. In this instance, think about how the home looks to buyers and what they might prefer. Do you have two reception rooms where one would do? Converting one into a larger kitchen and renovating the current kitchen into a utility room may be the solution to selling your home and increasing its value at the same time.
4. Appliances sell themselves
Just as the kitchen can sell itself, so too can the appliances. Buyers perceive the value of these appliances to be greater than their actual value, primarily because they are already situated in the property. They don’t have to go through the trouble of measuring, choosing and installing new appliances when they’re already there and, best of all, they match the kitchen perfectly. Ensuring that these appliances are of a high enough quality to match the kitchen is the only thing you as a seller need to remember in this instance.
Think like a buyer at every stage of selling your home
Putting yourself in the position of a buyer and looking at the prospects your home offers is often the only way to fully embrace the selling process. The kitchen is an integral part of the home and, as such, you need to make it shine. Installing a new kitchen prior to the sale could add as much as 4% value to the entire property and be a major factor in any purchasing decision. It makes sense to seriously consider it.
