As a recent first-time buyer, here's my opinion:
You have very little $ for changes because you are paying on 2 mortgages -- not my problem. Either your house is equivalent to others I'm looking at in the same price range or it's not. If it's not, it doesn't matter to me why not.
You're "constantly being told to update this or update that." Maybe this and that need to be updated for you to get the price you're hoping for. If you're constantly being told that, there's probably a grain of truth in there, whether or not you and your wallet want to hear it.
People are "too lazy to look past the superficial and see what's underneath." Hey, I'm saving up to buy a house -- I don't have extra $ to pretty it up, either. Odds are also very good that I'm looking at a townhouse because I don't have the desire to do a lot of maintenance myself. Am I lazy? Or just inexperienced? Or working two jobs? Or...?
Superficial is what's going to attract me initially and even get me to look at what's underneath. I have to live with the way it looks starting the day I move in. If I can see that despite being a sound, well-built home, it's going to need another $10,000 to look nice, I'm going to go look at houses that are priced at $10,000 more and have already had the work done.
People are going to try to get the most house for the money, and whether you like it or not, that includes getting the most UPDATED house for the money. If yours is not competitive with whatever else I can look at in the price range, you really have only two choices: Make the changes so your house competes, or put it into a different (lower) price range so I'm comparing it with a different (cheaper) group of houses.
Jo Ann