Is fitting security screens worth it before you sell in Wollongong?
Mostly no as a value-add, and yes as a defect-remover. Screening a whole house costs $3,500 to $6,000 and no buyer hands that back at auction. What does move money is clearing the two or three findings a building inspector writes up and a buyer prices at three or four times the repair: rusted-through screens, a security door that will not latch, a missing window fall-prevention device in a unit. Those cost $150 to $900 to fix and protect a negotiation worth thousands. Read the table below and do only the rows marked do it.
We get called for pre-sale work every spring across Figtree, Mangerton, Corrimal and the West Dapto estates, usually three weeks too late. This page is the advice we give at the kitchen table, including the jobs we tell sellers to skip, because a sale campaign is the one time a homeowner will happily overspend on the wrong thing.
Return table: what to do, what it costs, what it protects
| The job | Cost, installed | What it realistically adds or protects | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Re-mesh torn or perished flyscreens across the house | $35 to $70 each, about $250 to $500 for a typical house | Removes the damaged insect screens line from the building report and the unmaintained read at an open home | Do it |
| Repair a security door that will not latch or lock | $120 to $300 | Removes a functional defect a buyer will physically feel with their hand on the handle | Do it |
| Replace a corroded front security door | $900 to $1,400 | The main listing photograph and the first three metres of every inspection | Do it |
| Fit window fall-prevention devices, strata unit above 2m | $120 to $250 per window | A compliance item that shows in the strata report and can stall a settlement | Do it |
| Clean tea staining off coastal stainless screens | Free with a hose and a soft brush, $60 to $120 per door professionally | Presentation. Orange streaks in a listing photo read as rust even when the mesh is sound | Do it |
| Re-key so every door matches and the buyer gets a full set | $90 to $180 | A settlement irritation and a last-minute request from the buyer’s solicitor | Do it |
| Replace a jammed sliding security door on the main patio | $700 to $1,600, or $150 to $280 if it only needs rollers | Worth it only where buyers walk through it to the entertaining area. Try the roller repair first | Only if |
| Screen the ground floor bedroom windows | $180 to $480 per window | Only where the agent says security is coming up at opens, or the buyer pool is investors | Only if |
| Screen the whole house from scratch | $3,500 to $6,000 | Nothing measurable at sale. This is a job for someone who is staying | Skip it |
| Upgrade a sound aluminium door to 316 stainless | $900 to $1,400 | Nothing. No buyer at an open home can tell the mesh grade by looking | Skip it |
| Retractable flyscreens fitted for the campaign | $350 to $700 per opening | Nothing inside a 4 week campaign. A nice product bought at the wrong moment | Skip it |
| Cut a pet door into a security door before listing | $150 to $450 | Nothing, and it can count against you. Buyers without pets see a hole in a security door | Skip it |
Costs are 2026 Illawarra rates supplied and installed, consistent with our pricing guide. Verdicts assume a standard residential sale with a 3 to 4 week campaign.
What buyers actually notice, and what they do not
Buyers walk a house in about eleven minutes and they touch three or four things. The front security door is one of them, because they stand at it while the agent talks. The sliding door to the deck is another, because everyone opens it and looks at the yard. If either of those sticks, drags, or needs a shove, that is the sentence they repeat in the car afterwards.
What they do not notice: mesh grade, lock brand, whether the screen is AS 5039 tested, the quality of the corner welds, or that the upstairs bedroom screens are twelve years old. Nobody has ever paid more for a house because the mesh was 316 rather than 304. So the pre-sale rule is simple: spend money on what a hand touches and a camera sees, and spend nothing on what only an installer would recognise.
Presentation carries one Illawarra-specific trap. Tea staining, the orange bloom you get on stainless mesh in salt air, photographs as rust. Buyers read it as a house that has been let go, even though it is usually surface deposit that comes off with fresh water and a soft brush in twenty minutes. Do that on every screen before the photographer arrives. Our maintenance schedule covers how to do it without damaging the mesh, and the maintenance guide explains why it happens on this coast.
Getting a house ready for a campaign?
We will walk the property, tell you which of the twelve rows above actually apply to your house, and quote only those. Written quote in two business days.
What shows up in a building report, and what it costs you
Most Wollongong buyers order a pre-purchase building inspection, and many add a timber pest inspection. Those reports are written to Australian Standards for residential property inspections and they use a consistent vocabulary: major defect, minor defect, safety hazard. Screens and doors turn up in all three columns.
- Minor defects. Damaged or missing insect screens, corroded screen frames, a screen door that does not close properly, missing or loose fixings. Cheap to fix, but they accumulate.
- Safety hazards. A bedroom window above the ground floor with no fall-prevention device, a locked security screen on a bedroom with no internal release, glazing in a door or side panel with no safety glass marking. These get their own section and buyers read that section first. The egress side is covered on our fire egress rules page.
- What is not a defect. Tea staining, an older but functional aluminium door, a screen that is simply an older style. An inspector who calls those defects has written a soft report, and your agent can say so.
The financial mechanism is what matters. A buyer who reads eight minor defects does not add up eight repair costs. They form an impression of a house that has been neglected and then discount for the unknown, which is where a $400 list of repairs becomes a $5,000 request. Clearing the cheap items is not about the items. It is about the impression.
Fix it or disclose it
In NSW the sale of a house runs on the contract for sale with its prescribed documents, and there is no mandatory vendor building report. A seller is not obliged to volunteer every physical defect, but concealing or misrepresenting one is a different matter entirely, and painting over a corroded frame the week before the campaign is exactly the kind of thing that turns a $400 repair into a dispute after settlement.
The practical rule we use: anything under about $1,000 gets fixed, because a buyer will always charge you more for it than it costs. Anything genuinely expensive is better disclosed and priced in, because the buyer discovers it during the 5 business day cooling off period anyway, and a renegotiation from a position of surprise goes worse than a campaign that was honest from day one. In an auction campaign the same logic applies harder, since bidders have already done their inspections and a defect they knew about is priced, while one they discover late kills their bid entirely.
Timing against a Wollongong campaign
Security doors and screens are made to measure. From the measure, manufacture takes one to two weeks and installation is usually a single day. A typical Illawarra sale runs three to four weeks of campaign after the photographs, so work backwards:
- Six weeks out. Book the measure. This is the only window where replacements are on the table.
- Four weeks out. Install. Everything is fitted and photographed as part of the house rather than as fresh work.
- Three weeks out. Repairs only from here: re-mesh at $35 to $70, lock repair at $140 to $300, roller set at $150 to $280.
- Ten days out. Cleaning only. Hose the salt off, wash the frames, wipe the tracks. It costs nothing and it photographs.
If you are already inside three weeks and someone is trying to sell you a whole house of new screens for the campaign, that is a sale to them and a cost to you. The best time of year to fit screens is a different question and worth reading if you are staying rather than selling.
Three jobs we will talk you out of
We would rather quote the $300 job and keep the referral than take a $5,000 order that does nothing for you. These are the three we refuse most often before a sale.
- Screening the whole house to make it sell better. $3,500 to $6,000 for something buyers will not pay for. If you were going to do it anyway and you plan to stay two more years, different conversation. Before a campaign, no.
- Upgrading sound aluminium screens to 316 marine grade. The right call for a beachside owner who is staying a decade. Worth nothing at sale, because the difference is invisible until year eight. The reasoning is set out in stainless versus aluminium.
- Fitting retractable flyscreens for the open homes. A genuinely good product, $350 to $700 an opening, with no return at all inside a four week campaign. Buy them for the house you are moving into.
There is a fourth we will argue about rather than refuse: a full sliding security door on the patio at $700 to $1,600 when the existing one only needs a $150 to $280 roller set and a track clean. Always try the repair first. If the door then runs with one finger, you have saved over a thousand dollars and the buyer feels exactly the same thing they would have felt with the new one. If you are unsure whether it is repairable, the choosing guide explains what separates a worn door from a finished one.
Selling questions we get asked
Do security screens add value when you sell in Wollongong?
What do building inspectors write up about screens and doors?
How long before the campaign should this work be done?
Should I replace a rusty front security door before selling?
Is it better to fix a defect or disclose it?
Do I need council approval to fit security screens before a sale?
Price only the pre-sale jobs that are worth doing
Tell us your campaign date and we will measure, tell you which items are worth doing before it, and send a written quote within two business days.
Staying rather than selling?
Then the sums change completely, and screening the openings you actually use is one of the better dollars you can spend on an Illawarra house.