6 Must Do’s when Preparing your Home for Sale
It doesn’t make a difference whether you’ve lived in your current home for 2 years or 20 years because if you’ve decided it’s time to sell up and move house you’re more than likely going to have to spend a good amount of time fixing, touching up, cleaning and much more to get it up to scratch so it looks presentable to potential buyers.
The list of things one can do to a property to get it looking good is almost endless so to make things simple we’ve decided to list 6 of the most important tasks instead. We’re confident that if these 6 things are taken care of to a reasonable standard you should have no problem selling your home!
Let’s get started.
- Declutter
You’ve probably built up your fair share of clutter in your home over the years so the first thing you’re going to have to do is get rid of it or move it somewhere else.
Just like them adverts that pop up on your TV that show beautiful houses – they all have one thing in common which is very little clutter. You should aim to declutter and depersonalise your home as much as possible so things photo’s, shoes, jars etc and the like should be put away or hidden.
It’s important that buyers are able to visualise themselves living in the house so doing the above is a big step in helping them realise that.
- Give it a Fresh Lick of Paint
Both paint and wallpaper never last forever. Overtime paint will begin to ware away and wallpaper tears. It then becomes important to redo them if you’re going to sell your house.
Also don’t forget this does not only apply rooms with older paint. If you re-decorated even a year ago but decided to go with a bright shade of red not everyone is going to like that. If you’re wanting to get the best chance of a sale, you should re-paint the rooms with neutral colours.
These types of colours act as a blank canvas so to speak and give potential buyers the chance to visualize what their new homes could potentially look like.
- Deep Clean Everything
This one is pretty simple but just as important.
Nobody wants to buy a house that is filthy so deep cleaning everything before booking viewings is imperative. Buyers these days like to take a good look around at everything during a viewing so be sure to clean in awkward places like inside cupboards and behind the fridge as there is a good chance it may be seen.
First impressions matter so if buyer sees something they don’t like they probably won’t ever come back for second viewing.
- Get an Outside Opinion
Property buying experts House buyers 4u say getting a second opinion on what your property looks like is a great way to catch things you might have missed.
The reasoning behind this is simple – you see your home every day and become accustomed to certain areas so there is actually a very high possibility that you could ‘overlook’ an area that’s quite dirty. Bringing in outside people like relatives or friends will definitely help in eliminating this.
- Don’t Forget the Curb Appeal
People focus so much on making the inside of their home they often forget about the outside.
Remember, as soon as someone pulls up outside of your home the first thing they see is the exterior and garden. If your garden compromises of a full skip, black bags and lots of rubbish potential buyers won’t be impressed.
As stated earlier in the article, first impressions are of the utmost important – the house viewing doesn’t begin from the inside of the home, it begins from the outside so be sure to fix up your garden appropriately and remove any skips, bin bags, clutter and more before you put your home up for viewings!
- Pick a Reputable Estate Agent
So now that you have both the inside and the exterior of your home looking good it’s time to pick a real estate agent.
The best advice we can give here is to pick an agent with the following 2 qualities:
- They are reputable (good online/offline reviews or a close office you can visit).
- They are busy but not overly busy.
You don’t want to pick an agent that is very new or hasn’t got much presence online as they will probably be inexperienced but at the same time you don’t want to pick an agent that is super busy as they won’t give your property the 100% attention it deserves. Going with an agent in the middle ground here usually works out well.
Another way to find a good agent is to ask friends, family or relatives who have recently sold their home for recommendations. They have just gone through the whole selling process so the advice/recommendations they can give you is almost priceless!
We hope the 6 tips we’ve mentioned in our article will go a long way in helping you with the sale of your home – good luck!
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