The right furniture to sell your home.

Depending on market conditions, you may have to make that bit more of an effort to help to sell your property or if you are looking to achieve a higher price and attract greater interest from your viewings.

People’s requirements of property has changed over recent years with things such as commuter time to London or speed of broadband becoming more important than size of gardens etc. Many of us will spend a lot of our social time at home so having one that accommodates many of our needs is growing in importance so how can we make sure that when we get those viewings that we have made our property stand out and tempt in those offers?

How we style our homes will have a great effect on first impressions such as property details/photo online or that first viewing. We may not think so as we have lived with them for many years most probably, but our home furniture can quite important in helping to make up peoples mind when it comes to buying a home. You may have to try and detach yourself from your home when you are selling – Sometimes it pays to call in a local interior designer or home stager to look around your property and give you some ideas, even if they are just basic tips.

We may not realise, but many of us do hoard things and what might of started out as a very spacious house a few years back will no doubt have been added to with varied purchases, presents, inherited items and more. It is sometimes good to run through the house and get rid of things we do not really need or use, especially before putting your property up for sale.

If we want to show our homes as being spacious, comfortable, modern, welcoming and holding many more positive descriptions then we need to stage them. During the selling process it may even pay for you to look at a few similar property to yours online and see how they are presented or at least look at some interior design images on websites or social media sites such as Pinterest and get some ideas. You should then take a look around your property, room to room, and then pick out some actions you can take to increase their appeal.

Ideas to increase your home’s appeal and value include:

  • Furniture. This is a big topic and an important subject to explore when selling. Are you holding too much furniture and you should be looking to get rid of some or at least store them in a garage or local storage? By getting rid of furniture you are in turn increasing the space your potential buyers will see for their own lifestyles. Not only look at getting rid of some furniture, but could some also be moved to better positions? Can you do with repairing some or moving them to a more appropriate room? Does your furniture blend together nicely or have you modern combined with antique style or dark mahogany next to lighter pine?
  • Pictures. It is always nice to have great artwork around the house and using those wall spaces nicely, but many of us will have added picture after picture on the walls, especially of our family as they grow, so is it time to look to reduce them down and maybe concentrate on one of two focus points over a collection of smaller images with different style and colour frames?
  • Plants. Make sure if you have them that they are well maintain and not climbing all over the place taking up too much space. We sometimes forget about maintaining our plants at home and we certainly fail to see them growing from that small potted plant to something with a thousand times more leaves on and taking up a much wider place which can also darken the room especially if placed in front of a window.
  • Ornaments etc. Try and keep furniture clear of too many ornaments and other bits and bobs. Try and keep focal points on positives in the room and do not get people’s eyes or photos filled with your collection of Lilliput Lane houses or ceramic dolls etc.

There are many other tips to help you sell your property, but one extra one I like to advise is to know the age group of your potential buyer. This may sound quite impossible as you never really know who will be buying your house, but it pays to ask your estate agent their thoughts as your house may have suddenly become popular with a type of buyer, ie those who commute to London or those who wish to live near a school with great reviews. This will help you to style your property in a way that further appeals to that age group and allows then to see the property in a way they appreciate it more.

Christopher Walkey

Founder of Estate Agent Networking. Internationally invited speaker on how to build online target audiences using Social Media. Writes about UK property prices, housing, politics and affordable homes.

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