Should you decorate before selling your house?

Usually yes, but not for the reason estate agents imply. Decorating won't add to your asking price. What it does is stop buyers subtracting from it, and buyers subtract far more than the work would ever cost.

We're decorators, so of course we think you should decorate. Which is why the most useful section here is probably the list of things not to bother with.

The subtraction problem

Buyers don't add value for nice decoration. They deduct for bad decoration, and they deduct badly.

Watch what actually happens at a viewing. A buyer sees a tired hallway and a dark red bedroom and thinks: "That's a few grand of decorating, and weeks of mess, and I'd have to find someone." The number in their head isn't your quote. It's a vague, inflated figure plus a penalty for hassle.

That last row is the argument. £2,000 of decorating doesn't earn you £2,000. It stops a buyer knocking five off, or walking out and never making an offer at all.

The water stain line is the important one. A buyer doesn't price a stain at £150 of stain block. They price it as evidence of an unknown problem, and unknown problems get priced pessimistically or send them to a different house entirely.

Where the money goes furthest

If you're spending, spend here, in this order:

The hallway is first and it isn't close. It's the first thing a buyer walks into, and first impressions set the interpretation of everything after. A buyer who walks into a fresh hall reads the rest of the house generously. One who walks into a scuffed one starts hunting for problems.

It's also the room most likely to be genuinely tired, because it takes more punishment than anywhere else. See our hall, stairs and landing guide.

What not to bother with

The honest bit:

• The whole house, if it's basically fine. Freshly decorated and tired-but-neutral look similar in photos. Fix the bad rooms.
• Anything expensive in a room being ripped out. If the kitchen's dated, the buyer is replacing it. Don't pay for heritage finishes in a room that's coming out.
• The garage, utility, loft. Nobody has ever paid more for a painted garage.
• Feature walls. You're asking a buyer to share your taste. Neutral asks nothing.
• Expensive designer paint. Nobody at a viewing knows or cares what's on the wall. Spend it on prep, or don't spend it. See trade vs retail.
• The exterior, if it's structurally sound. Expensive, weather-dependent, and rarely moves the number.

The colour question

Neutral. But that word does a lot of work, and two mistakes are common.

Not brilliant white. It photographs cold and blue, it shows every imperfection, and it reads as "rental" or "flip". It's the cheap option that looks like the cheap option.

Not bold. Your dark green dining room might be beautiful. It's also asking a buyer to either love it or price redecorating it. Both are worse for you than them not thinking about it at all.

A soft, warm neutral. A warm off-white or a very soft greige. It photographs well, it flatters most furniture, and it lets a buyer picture their own things in the room, which is the entire job. Our guide to choosing a white covers undertones and how rooms facing different ways change them.

One exception worth knowing: a slightly deeper neutral can help a very large, very bare room, which otherwise photographs as an empty void. Rare, but real.

Why the photos change everything

This is the bit people get wrong on timing, and it's expensive.

Almost every buyer decides whether to view from the photographs alone. They scroll, they judge, they book or they don't. The viewing is a confirmation exercise.

So decorating after the listing goes live wastes most of what you paid for. The photos generating your viewings show the old decoration. You've paid for the benefit and thrown away the mechanism that delivers it.

• Decorate, then photograph. Non-negotiable.
• Build the decorating into your timeline before you instruct the agent. Not after.
• Book early. Spring is the busiest season for both selling and decorating, for the same reason. A good decorator in April is booked in April.
• Tell us the photography date. We'll work to it, or tell you honestly it can't be done rather than promise and miss.

The empty-house advantage

If you've already moved, or you're selling a probate property, you're in the best possible position and it's worth knowing.

An empty house is dramatically cheaper and faster to decorate. Nothing to move, nothing to cover, no working around anyone, no negotiating which room's free. On a 3-bed that's often a full day off the job, and days are what you're paying for.

Probate sales in particular are usually worth decorating. They tend to be genuinely dated, they're often already empty, and the gap between "looks like a house someone lived in for forty years" and "looks like a home" is the widest gap decorating can close.

What you must not paint over

The reasoning is practical, not moral. A survey will find it, and a problem found after you covered it costs you far more at the negotiating table than the same problem disclosed and dealt with. Buyers forgive an old leak that was fixed. They don't forgive discovering you painted over it.

The right move: fix the cause, dry it out, treat and seal it properly, and keep the invoice. "There was a leak, it was fixed in March, here's the paperwork" is a fundamentally different conversation from a surveyor finding a damp reading behind fresh emulsion.

The honest summary

Decorate the hall, the main living room and the main bedroom. Neutralise anything bold. Deal properly with any defect. Do it before the photos. Don't decorate the garage.

And if your house is already neutral and reasonably fresh, we'll tell you to keep your money. That's a real conversation we have, and it costs us the job. It's also the reason people call us back.

Frequently asked questions