Judge the structure, not the paint.

A house is the largest purchase most families make and it is normally judged on finishes, because finishes are the only part a buyer can read. Fresh paint is cheap. What it sits on is not.

• The structure. Whether what is holding the house up was built to carry what is on it.
• The paperwork. Whether the building that exists matches the building that was approved. A house built away from its approved drawings becomes the buyer's problem, not the seller's.
• What it will cost you next. The repairs the house is going to need in the first few years, priced honestly before you negotiate rather than after you own it.

On the selling side we help owners present a built house properly: what is worth fixing before it goes on the market, what is not worth the money, and what a serious buyer is going to ask about the paperwork.

Small finishing work often changes the price more than its cost. Equally, some repairs never return what they cost, and we would rather tell you that than sell you the work. Where it is worth doing, that is renovation and repair.

An agent is paid when the sale happens. An engineer is paid to tell you what the building is. Those are different jobs and it is worth having the second one on your side before you commit to the first.