When you are selling your house, particularly in the current market, there are some processes that you can go through to make the sale easier.
Almost everyone wants to maximise what price they get from a house sale and everyone wants their house not to be on the market a long time. Have you noticed that in recent times when a For Sale sign goes up outside a house it is either there for months and months or within two weeks it has changed Sold (subject to contract of course).
There are certain things that make a house more saleable and if you take care of these it will help your sale move along.
Here are some tips for you:
- Minimise location issues
- Price
- Kerb Appeal
- De-Clutter and De-Personalise
- Cleaning
- Maintenance
Minimise Location Issues
First of all, you are stuck with where your house is!
You can't alter the fundamental location, location, location aspect of your sale. However, even if there are downsides to where your house is at the moment, you can help minimise them. For instance if the problem is seasonal (such as trees dropping leaves on the lawn), then if possible don't sell in that season.
Price
Check on the houses similar to yours that have sold recently and make sure your house is consistent.
Your estate agent will be able to help you, and make sure you get at least 3 agents to quote. They will have differences in commission rates, but they will also be able to give you an overview of the local marketplace. In many cases there is a “ceiling price” for a particular road or location and they will be able to tell you where in the scale your house fits.
Be aware of external factors on prices such as Stamp Duty bands and freezes. In the modern house buying arena, be cognizant of the fact that people get alerts by email or text based on pre-determined search factors on estate agent websites, such as price bands and number of bedrooms.
Kerb Appeal
Make sure the outside of the house from the buyer's approach is as good as you can make it.
Mow the lawn, trim the hedges, buy pots and hanging baskets. Make sure paint looks good on the windows if they are wood, wash down uPVC windows and doors. Make sure the outside light works if you will be selling in the shorter days of the year. It is important to get buyers to make that first important step and book the viewing.
De-Clutter and De-Personalise
Reduce the amount of things in your house.
Start the moving process early – take stuff to car boot sales, charity shops or recycling facilities. If you have things you want to keep but that are not likely to add to the appeal of the house, then pack them up and store them. If your house doesn't have storage then put them into an external storage facility.
Especially remove very personal items like photographs. Take a good hard look at your furniture and decide if any of it is too large or un-needed in the space and put that in storage too. If you think you have a serious issue in this area and feel you can't tackle it yourself then you can consider employing a home staging company.
Cleaning
Give the house a good deep clean. If you don't like cleaning yourself, then call in a cleaning company, you should get the money back in extra pounds of the sale price.
Windows are particularly important as they let additional light into the house making it more appealing.
Maintenance
Do any maintenance tasks that are obvious to a buyer or might show up at the survey stage. Leaks and paintwork problems are relatively easy to solve.
If carpets are looking threadbare or dirty then consider replacing them – the cost is high, but only a small amount compared to selling the house more easily. Weed the garden and trim the plants. The aim here is to convince the buyer that there will not be that much that they will have to do as soon as they move in, which lowers a barrier to sale.
You will want to do many of these steps before calling in estate agents to quote, because they need to see the house in the same way a buyer will and they will quote accordingly.
