Written from the trenches of Auckland real estate by Amit Sharma — Bayleys agent, 10+ years marketing experience.
Worth doing: a deep professional clean, fresh neutral paint where walls are tired, replacing broken or dated light fittings, fixing every obvious defect (door handles, leaking taps, cracked tiles), and tidying the garden so the front of the house photographs cleanly.
Often worth doing: professional staging for vacant homes, replacing badly worn carpet in the main living areas, and re-grouting tired bathrooms.
Rarely worth doing: full kitchen replacements, full bathroom replacements, swimming pools, or any deeply personal design choice. You will rarely recoup the spend, and you may put off buyers who would have happily renovated to their own taste.
Never worth doing: anything unconsented in the final months before sale, or any structural work you cannot finish properly before campaign launch. Half-finished work is worse than no work.
Rule of thumb: if a job will take more than four weeks or cost more than two percent of your likely sale price, get a second opinion before you start.
The best $5,000 most vendors spend is on cleaning, staging and a great campaign — not on a renovation the next owner will redo anyway.