I showed a house yesterday.  Nice place.  It was all original except the kitchen.

It wasn’t that old of a house, so it wasn’t what I would call outdated.  Since it wasn’t that old, nothing was worn out either.  I would call it neutrally nice-not bad and not great at the same time.

But that kitchen was super nice, and that was the problem with this house.

Yeah, you read that right.  The remodeled kitchen was a negative.

Why?

Because the people who are attracted to the house due to that super nice kitchen will be disappointed that the rest of the house isn’t as nice.  They leave thinking they would have to “Finish” the rest of the remodeling.

The people who won’t mind the rest of the house don’t care about that super nice kitchen and won’t want to pay for it through the higher list price.  They leave thinking the house is overpriced.

It would have been better for this seller to have spent less on the kitchen and updated all of the house evenly.

That has always been my advice after observing how buyers react to houses.  All of your house should be consistently nice if you want your updates to add value.  If they aren’t, then you are usually giving away that one space where you spent the most money.