Provided by Shane Harman, a valued member of our sales team with experience in building/construction, project management and home renovations.
Quick Fix – Tip 5 – ‘Grout Expectations’
When considering presentation tips, this is one that gets missed.
Buyers are fussy. And their eyes seem to be getting better.
Must be something in the water. Or maybe they’re just eating lots of carrots.
A smooth and uninterrupted grout line suggests a clean, well-maintained property. And it’s easy to underestimate the effects of something as small as some missing grout here and there – or discoloured grout in the bottom three runs in the shower cubicle.
Buyers will scrutinise anything, and anything that looks out of place – is simply considered by buyers – as ‘something wrong with it’.
Buyers may make comments such as ‘there are cracks in the grout…there must be problems with the stumps’.
I often quietly smile to myself when I hear comments such as this, and fortunately for me (with experience in the building trade), I am able to quickly put the buyer’s minds’ at ease with some alternative and perhaps more realistic explanations to the grout situation.
However, if these concerns are left unanswered during an inspection, they can remain a nagging issue in the buyer’s mind, and simply get added to the list of ‘things to fix’, which in the buyer’s mind equates to ‘money that has to be outlaid’.
So, better to be on top of these small maintenance items and check them off your ‘things to fix’ list prior to selling.
TIP
Check all grout lines. If there are numerous gaps where grout should be, either spot grout (you must make sure you match the colour) or scrape the grout out and re-grout an entire area. There are ample online tutorials on how to go about this.
The result will surprise you. New grout can really make a tile job ‘pop’.
For those discoloured grout lines, hit them with a high-grade mould killer spray, and give them a scrub. A hard toothbrush will assist in those hard-to-get-to places.
…BENEFIT OF THE GROUT.