How to prepare your house for sale
Free pre-marketing advice from our in-house expert.
At Belvoir, we deal with vendors and buyers on a daily basis, visiting houses for appraisals, advising vendors on how to maximise their property's potential and listening to buyers on what they are looking for in a house.
Here are my top 5 tips for preparing your home for sale, to get the highest price and the quickest sale.
1. DECLUTTER
We fully understand that your home is a special place. It's been your refuge at the end of a long day's work, it's where you've brought up your children, it's where you've collected lots of wonderful memories. However, once you've decided it's time to find your next home, it's time to think more objectively about this house. It's time to present it to the next family as a home they will like to live in.
Lots of studies and articles say that at least a quarter of buyers attending viewings are distracted by clutter in a home. Rather than focus on the positives, such buyers will be fixating on the negative and therefore knocking down the price in their heads. Clutter also makes the buyer less able to picture themselves living in your home.
My advice is to look in every room and remove all clutter;
- box up unnecessary knick knacks and souvenirs
– tidy up bookshelves and perhaps donate surplus books to charity shops
– remove unnecessary furniture that makes a room feel small. Keep in storage if you need it for your next home or sell it off immediately
– check your kitchen cupboards as well. If the contents are overflowing onto work surfaces, perhaps it's time to clear some unused kitchen crockery
Childrens' rooms are particularly hard. So immediately sift through their things and give away or sell of toys and clothes they have outgrown. Good storage units or baskets are essential in childrens' rooms to tidy things away so they don't look like clutter.
You want to create a spacious, light and airy feel in the house BEFORE photographs are taken to market the house for sale.
Look out for my next tip next week. If you’d like to discuss how to prepare your home, just ring me on 01782 478444. Our office covers these postcodes: ST1, ST2, ST3, ST6, ST8, ST9 and ST13. I’d be happy to come round to do an appraisal.
Ramona Hirschi
Managing Director
Belvoir Stoke on Trent
Estate & Letting Agents
