Preparing your property for sale – talk to our Taunton estate agents about the best way to make your home stand out from the crowd
First impressions count and a potential buyer can lose interest in seconds if your home doesn’t have strong kerb appeal. Once inside it’s important to wow them with your space and allow them to visualise how it would work for them. We look at some steps to take when preparing your property for sale…
Easy to find!
'For Sale' boards do more than market your home - they allow people to find you! Working in the areas we cover, many of our properties for sale are off the beaten track, so a 'For Sale' board is an invaluable beacon, and often saves time and stress for potential purchasers...and petrol costs in driving up and down country roads.
If you have a house name or number, make sure it's clearly visible and free from foliage.
Photography is key
The first glimpse of your home for buyers will, no doubt, happen through a property portal or your estate agent’s website, so getting the best photography right is vital. We work with professional, established photographers with decades of experience who are briefed to produce photography that highlights the best features of a home. There’s nothing worse than a lovely property let down by images with poor lighting, strange angles and unflattering photography.
Making sure your property is show home ready will help the photographer to portray just how spacious and light the accommodation is and allow a potential buyer to see enough available space for their own belongings to live. Take a good look with an objective eye…what can you temporarily live without and remove from display during the marketing phase?
A detailed view
Those cables that jut out over the lower gutter, the water stains on your windowsills from previous flowerboxes, the condition of the lawn and the doormat you bought in 2012…it’s easy to forget the details, but a buyer will see these immediately and may get the impression that your property is unloved. It takes minutes to rectify the small things but could make a huge difference to your kerb appeal.
Upgrading your door furniture can be a sure-fire way to increase the kerb appeal of your property – a new letterbox and door handle will work wonders! Consider investing in some new terracotta pots and a tray of geraniums. You can take them with you when you move, and they’ll give the front of your home a sunny and well-tended-for outlook.
What will a buyer notice?
What’s in your eyeline when you walk into a room? Is it the multitude of kitchen appliances? Perhaps it’s the world of coats, shoes and umbrellas in the hallway or maybe the washing basket in a bedroom. If it’s the first thing you see it will be the first thing a potential buyer will see too.
Storing your personal items away and de-cluttering the house will give a sense of space which helps potential buyers visualise where their furniture and items may go. If you don’t have the space to store them away permanently, consider booking viewings over a short space of time or a single day, which will give you a chance to put everything away but get it back out when you need it. A prospective buyer may struggle to work out where their possessions will live if it's clear that yours do not have a home.
Dress for success
Don’t be afraid to dress your home in preparation for viewings. They may be old, but they work – baking bread, brewing coffee and fresh flowers on the table all invoke a feeling of calm and comfort and are always preferred to the smell of a wet dog! Talking of pets, if you can, remove your pets to the care of a friend of relative for the duration of each viewing so that people can see the potential on your property without being hassled by the family Labrador!
The world is your stage
Well it is if your estate agent markets your home to the right people! We have decades of experience in the Taunton and Somerset property markets, backed by a national network of 40+ offices and clients from all over the UK and beyond looking for a new home. We advertise our properties extensively on social media both on our branch pages and our national pages, and we utilise the national press with weekly advertising in The Times, The Telegraph and regular advertising in Country Life, and locally regularly featuring in Cheshire Life.
A final check
Take a slow walk from the pavement outside your house to your front door – or from where the car would be parked to your front door. Look around objectively – is your gate in need of painting? Has the catch fallen off? Are there trip hazards on the path – or is it slippery with moss? When you get to the front door, look around – is the outside light clean, bright and working? Is the door clean and fresh? Does the doorbell work? (Viewers give up if they can’t make themselves heard). The time where your viewer is waiting to be let in is the time they get an uninterrupted first impression – make it a positive one. Your house may be amazing inside, but if they are already feeling negative by the time they step over the threshold, you will already be on the back foot and have ground to make up.
Talk to us
If you’re in any doubt about the best way to present your home, please speak to us as we would be delighted to help and advice on the best possible way to show your home. Our teams of skilled property experts have been advising people just like you for decades and will be delighted to assist to ensure your property is presented at its absolute best.
