Selling your home typically means you’re done with the place and you’re ready to move on – yet this is the time you need to love your property more than any other time during your stay! Why? Because if your home doesn’t gleam with care and attention, what you are selling is not a home, but a property. And where you are selling four unloved walls, potential buyers are less likely to make an emotional connection with the place.
Making a sale that is as close to the asking price as possible isn’t about finding the most gullible buyer out there and convincing them of legendary treasure hidden in the walls. It’s about making people feel that the walls have value. It’s a tough sell. But it’s possible.
Declutter now or forever regret it
Do you know how to properly get rid of your microwave when it breaks? Do you know if your local waste disposal plant will accept old mattresses? Or where to take large heavy stonework from garden designs gone by? Maybe you do know these things. But most people don’t know them. And that’s why yards and garages tend to be stacked high with cumbersome this-n-thats, collecting dust and costing you dearly in the home seller stakes.
Remember, people don’t want to walk around imagining what the place would look like if it weren’t for your piles of books and magazines, or what the hall and stairs might look like if you hadn’t covered the walls in an endless sea of chintzy photo frames (just think of all the damage to the walls – buyers notice that stuff). The bottom line is you must sort out your clutter. It’s that simple.
Decorate. Every room. No excuses.
When was the last time you decorated your spare bedroom? Are those tiles above your kitchen sink more than 10 years old? What about the carpets in your lounge? More than maybe five years old?
Members of the general public may be foolish but they’re not stupid. You can’t pass off your ageing interiors for modern prices. By all means, try it. And when the only offer you get is something like half a year’s wages below the asking price because the buyer needs funds to remodel, you might want to go back to square one and consider those decorating plans after all.
The little things make up the big things
Speaking from experience, a childhood friend’s house used to smell like soup. They didn’t eat a lot of soup. But the air was grungy and heavy, like a pan of bubbling soup was always on the go. Not only that, the stairs creaked like thunder and the backyard was filled with dog muck (they kept two dogs, who appeared to be in perpetual competition with one another to see who could produce the most dog muck in one day … it was pretty much always a tie).
You know your home. If you’re honest with yourself, from animal smells to creaking doors and knocking pipes, you know what you need to sort out.
Collaborative post with our brand partner.
