Top tips: Getting your house ready to sell.

If you’re looking to move, being able to sell your current property speedily at the right price is an essential part of the property chain. Waiting on a sale can often lead to you missing out on your next dream home, leaving you feeling shackled to your current house.

In this article, we provide some handy, helpful hints for making your property more attractive to buyers and supercharging the selling process.

Is the price right?

Before looking to sell your house, it’s important to think about how much you want to sell it for, especially if it’s going to help fund your next move. In order to attract buyers from the outset, be sure not to set expectations and the price too high as, not only will you attract viewings that will underwhelm, you can easily price yourself out of the market.

When thinking about the price:

1. Consider your location – Do you know how much houses in your city, area or street have sold for in the past 6 to 12 months? Researching the selling price of similar property types within your local area will give you a good indication on what potential buyers are willing to pay. You should be aware of any factors that may affect the attractiveness of your property such as new developments or repurposing of property nearby which may affect desirability.

2. What value have you added? – If you’ve made improvements to your home, such as adding a conservatory or extension, renovating the kitchen or bathroom or even modernising the electrics and plumbing, you will have added value and that should be reflected in your price.

3. Ask the experts - Whilst there are online valuation calculators that can help you, the best way to get an accurate house price is to ask the experts – your local estate agents. Ask 3 separate estate agents to value your property to get a fair indication of the average based on their local knowledge of the market. They can also help to identify the features in your property that buyers will be most interested in.

First impressions

Although making a great first impression won’t guarantee a sale, making a bad first impression will definitely harm your chances. Home buying can be an emotional decision as much as a logical one, and it can be very difficult for buyers to see past their initial impressions later down the line.

With potentially hundreds of homes available online or in your estate agent’s window, with pictures and details that can be perused and poured over at leisure, you need to make sure your home stands out from the crowd.

Here are some tips to grab attention and make your property pop:

1. Get the best pictures – Whether it’s your estate agent taking the pictures or yourself, ensure that the images look as good as possible by making sure the area is tidy and well lit. Clear any clutter, make the space as attractive as possible and clearly define each room’s role. For example, if you have a small room that you usually use entirely for storage, clear it out and add a desk and chair so that it appears as a study instead.

2. Maximise your space – If your rooms aren’t the biggest, take your pictures at an angle, standing in one corner, to maximize the space that is displayed in the picture.

3. Shout about your positives – Back up your great photography with details that highlight the positive aspects of your property. Some examples include mentioning extensions or refurbishments that you’ve added, local amenities, schools and transport links that buyers will benefit from, and details such as a south facing garden, off street parking or ensuite facilities.

4. Kerb appeal – First impressions don’t just extend to what a buyer sees online or at the estate agent. When viewers come to visit your property, consider what the first things that they see are as they stand outside your house. Little things like overflowing bins, chipping paint or overgrown grass, unruly plants and trees can sully all the hard work that your great photography originally garnered. Ensure that the exterior of your house is as well maintained as the interior before every viewing.

Declutter and depersonalize

1. Make your rooms look bigger – By removing all the clutter, not only will it help to make each room look cleaner, it will also make them look bigger.

2. Make it their home, not yours – Before a viewing, it’s a good idea to remove your personal items such as family photos, school projects on the fridge, kid’s toys and even medication. The idea is to allow the viewers to imagine themselves living there. You can replace personal items with more generic display items like art and flowers.

3. Clean, clean, clean – Before each and every viewing, make sure you give each room a thorough clean, paying special attention to problem areas like the kitchen and bathrooms. Not only will this help to make your property look better, it also means you can catch any potentially smelly, off putting odours.

Repair and Repaint

1. Pick neutral colours – Whilst bold interior design choices might suit your lifestyle, your vivid and unique décor might not be to everyone’s taste. Your viewers want to be able to imagine themselves living in your house so creating a blank canvas for them will help to make your home more attractive. Consider repainting with more neutral whites, greys and light blues.

2. Repair everything – Visitors will see the little issues around your property as something that they will need to fix. Not only can this have a negative impact on their opinion, but can also lead to them putting in a lower offer, even when the repairs are minimal.

Stage your rooms

1. Define each room’s role – Our modern lives often mean that the rooms in our homes have multiple uses. For example, the Living Room that also doubles as your dining room or study. But, this can be confusing to people viewing your home so you should look to give each room a defined role.

2. Refresh your furnishings – During your deep clean, don’t forget about your furniture, carpets and curtains. Cleaning the items will help to make your property look both brighter and newer. If you have a particularly nice piece of furniture, consider placing it in a more prominent position in the room as a focal point. You can also hire professional “staging” companies that will dress your house with statement pieces and focal points during viewings, making your home look more attractive to buyers.

3. Let there be light – Make it easier for your viewer to see your property (and all the hard work you have put in to sell it) by improving the lighting. Whether it’s a statement lamp or spotlight, or making sure that natural light enters the room, improvements will make your house brighter, more inviting and can be used to highlight your property’s best features.

4. More than meets the eye – When it comes to viewing a property, we often think it’s all about what the buyer sees, but their decision to buy can also be affected by their other senses. For example, making a fresh brew of coffee or baking bread before a viewing can fill your house with a pleasant aroma that will help buyers see it as their home. Placing flowers in different rooms is also an inexpensive way of adding both colour and boosting the aesthetic.

If you’re struggling to sell your house, and it’s putting your next move in jeopardy, there are products that might be able to help. Our Chain Break Bridging Loans can give you the financial freedom to fund your move now whilst you wait for your current home to sell.

You’d have up to 12 months to repay a bridging loan so can wait for the right offer at the right price instead of feeling pressured to sell. And, if you do manage to sell your home faster than expected, we won’t penalise you for paying back early as our chain break bridging loans don’t include early repayment fees.

Bridging loans are designed as a short term solution only and are typically offered at a higher interest rate than a standard mortgage.

You’d also have two separate loans at the same time, with a chain break bridging loan on your existing property and a mortgage on your new home. Although Chain Break Bridging Loans don’t have a monthly repayment, as you repay in full during or at the end of your term, it’s worth considering the implications of making payments on both loans at the same time.

If you can’t repay the bridging loan in full (including the loan amount, accrued interest, arrangement fee and redemption administration fee) at the end of the specified term period, due to the property not selling or other funds not being available as expected, your property could be at risk of repossession. If you think that you could fall into arrears on any loan payment, you should contact your provider as early as possible as they might be able to work with you on a solution.