Should I paint before I sell?

Paint does two different jobs

Inside, paint is cosmetic. It makes rooms read clean and light in photographs and at an open home, and it covers the marks of living in a house.

Outside, paint is maintenance. It protects weatherboards, joinery and trim, and peeling paint or bare timber is read as work not done rather than as a colour choice. The outside job is the one that matters more, because a building inspector describes what they see, and flaking paint, bare timber and water staining go into the report. A dated but sound interior colour usually does not.

What to decide it on

• The first minute. The front gate, the path, the door, the entry and the main living room are where a buyer forms their opinion. Scuffed skirtings and marked walls in those spaces are cheap to fix and awkward to explain.
• What an inspector will write down. Peeling exterior paint, bare or soft timber, water staining on a ceiling. These become line items a buyer prices at their own guess.
• Cheap to fix against expensive to explain. A morning with a brush on a window sill removes a sentence from a report.
• Time and weather. Exterior painting depends on both, and on trade availability. If a full exterior job pushes the campaign into a month that does not suit you, do the parts that show and leave the rest.
• Who is buying. A house being sold as a renovation project does not need fresh paint. A house being sold as ready to move into does.

Where to stop

A full repaint is rarely necessary to sell. Touching up, painting one or two rooms that let the rest down, and washing the exterior are usually the sensible end of the range. A bold colour in a single room is a matter of taste and a buyer can change it in a weekend.

If you do paint, keep it plain and consistent through the house. That is not a rule about taste, it just stops a buyer counting the rooms they would have to redo.

Do not paint over a problem

Painting over a water stain without fixing the cause does not remove the problem and does not remove your obligation to be straight about it. Your agent has their own duty: rule 10.7 of the Client Care Rules requires a licensee to disclose known defects to a buyer, and rule 10.8 says a licensee must not continue to act for a client who directs that such information be withheld. Fix it, disclose it, or price for it.