Cheapest way to carpet a house?

[DC]

End of an era, selling my late dad's house where he was from 1959. It was in need of a refurbish to prepare for the market, so it's been stripped back, painted all walls a neutral colour, fixed all the bits that needed doing, new consumer unit etc.

Which leaves the carpets, they've all been skipped, I remember one being purchased from ELS around 1979 that was still in situ.

I won't be living there, so it's a case of putting some neutral but cheap & servicable ones down.

A quick look at Carpetright they have a basic one for £2.99 M², with underlay, grippers & a fitter on top. I've also been pointed to

Any other tips or pointers? Anny haggle room with the Hight St. retailers? It's a standard 1950 3 bed detached.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

I was recently involved in modernising a bungalow. The guy doing the job just put down underlay and left it at that.

[dennis]

£2.99 is cheap carpet. Don't expect it to wear well unless its 100% nylon. Good underlay costs more.

Ask about roll ends and have odd colours in each room and you can get good carpet for about the same price.

Ask the estate agent if fitting cheap carpet is actually going to sell the house better as most buyers will probably rip it up and fit their own choice.

[GB]

Are the floorboards in good enough condition to sand and varnish? It's a lot of work, but the end result can add £,000s to the sale price.

Carpetright make their money from the extras, eg underlay, grippers & a fitter

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

We were warned about Carpetright sub-contracted carpet fitter after an unfortunate encounter with them.

They used to sell good carpet really cheaply then screw you good and proper on the underlay and grippers which is how they make back their margins.

Try independent local carpet fitters. Small family run affairs get re-sales from personal recommendation. See what they come up with. Carpetright - I'd never use them again.

:)

[Bob Minchin]

If you use a foam backed carpet, cheap as chips and either needs no underlay or just cheap paper. You should be able to get your own fitter for a good deal as he will spend most of a day there and less wasted time on the road.

If you are to believe the TV programmes about selling houses, it seems that many buyers are incapable of visualising what they could do with the rooms and the "experts" even go as far as hiring furniture to dress each room as living space, bedrooms, home office etc. A few £K spent on carpet and furniture hire might get you double that over the empty price. Same seems to go for the garden, time spent on tidying that up and pots on the patio etc might pay dividends

I'd rather see a place completely empty and use my imagination where I would put stuff but as time goes by I realise that I am less and less "normal" compared to Joe Public.

Your estate agent should be able to advise on the market potential. Sometime they seem to hold open days with all the punters in at the same time then they fight over it almost as a sealed bid auction over the next few days. Repeat if you don't get the price you want first time.

[Tim+]

I really really want to know what an "all floor sex press" is. ;-)

Tim

[Chris French]

In message , dennis@home.?.invalid writes

He is selling, why does he care about it wearing?

Buyers aren't going to care if it's good or cheap carpet really. They will just clock - new clean carpet, don't need to worry about that at the beginning.

I don't know about that. We have bought two houses, neither time did we rip all the carpets out at the beginning. In fact we still have quite a bit of the carpet in this house still. The stairs and landing carpet needs replacing, but it's will be expensive.

I think being carpeted will help sell it quicker., not necessarily command much more on the price though. Lots of people don't want to worry about decorating or whatever straight away, and don't want to live with it all scruffy, so being nicely finished, even if bland helps sell quicker. Esp. for a house like the OP's where there are loads around.

So I would go with as cheap as could do it for.

I'd try out a couple of smaller local places as well. There certainly will be haggle room if you are doing an old house I'd have thought.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, you really really don't ;)

[harry]

ISTR I was told once about "kerb appeal" Ie, most viewers are strongly influenced by what they see from the road sid e.

[DC]

I thought that but if I were moving in I'd want something down, even if cheap & rip it up at my leisure. The consensus speaking to workmates is to stick some down. There's a whole mix of not good looking (but sound) floor now, downstairs is all solid, red tiles in the hallway, then vinyl tiles in loung/dining room with some missing & a gap from when it was 2 rooms. Upstairs is 1950's floorboards that look that age.

Pre refurb I got the agent in to value it for Probate, he said £120k, which would have realisticly been a sale 1t £110-115k. Ceiling price in the street is £135k with a modern finish.

£6k spent so far on decoration & numerous other bits, happy to drop another £1k on carpets that will be more than returned in the sell price I think, but will ask the agent.

[DC]

Yep, think I'll go to an independent. Kitchen is already freshly tiled, bathroom does need doing.

Rental is more like £700 PCM in the area, but I'm one of 3 brothers, the other 2 wishing to sell. Although I'm looking to do some BTL with my cut + savings I already have, it's time to cut loose on this house.

[newshound]

My view too, *provided* it's not a property where buyer is likely to want to rewire / replumb straight away. Worth discussing with estate agent as they may put you on to people they use for commercial property.

[JoeJoe]

I've flipped quite a few houses in the last 10 years or so.

My advice would be:

- Neutral colour (off white) carpet - as cheap as it gets pretty much (CarpetRight etc). As long as the underlay is of good quality and the fitting done properly it will look fine. One colour for the whole house

- definitely no mix-and-match...

- Underlay + grippers - independent supplier - never from the likes of CarpetRigh etc as this is where they make their money (think price of buying a new printer and then price of ink later...). Expect to pay around 30-50% of what CR will charge you.

- Fitting - first couple of times I used the ones referred to by CarpetRight - they sub it and take (a very small) cut for themselves. After that I used the best of the two directly saving me the cut.

[Bill]

In message , RJH writes

When we did exhibitions, I remember it being given away at the end.

[News]

Agreed, but, to my way of thinking, carpeting the house will just make it easier to sell, rather than necessarily achieving a higher price.