How To Avoid A House Sale Disaster
Are you planning on selling your home in the near future?
We move home on average 8 times in our lives! It’s known as one of the most stressful things we will ever have to go through.
To help you get your home best prepared to sell and to ensure it’s attractive to potential buyers, we’ve put together our guide to avoid a house sale nightmare.
When Is The Best Time To Sell Your House?
Deciding you are selling your home is not an overnight decision. It’s likely there is a lot of thought and discussions that have gone on before coming to this decision. You may have to move home for a number of possible reasons, such as your family is growing and you need an extra bedroom. Or you might be relocating to a new area for work.
It’s a commonly held belief that the best time to sell your home is at the beginning of spring. However, one of the potential issues you might face is that everyone is following this idea, then the supply on the market will heavily outweigh the demand. This will make selling your home much more difficult.
You may decide that you want to wait for the housing market to go up, with the hope that you are going to get more money fir your house. However, this may not actually account for much, as you could be waiting a long time! The best time to sell is when it feels right for you!
Pros Of Selling In Spring
- Traditionally the best time to move
- With the clocks going back, it will be staying lighter for longer, giving you more time for viewings
- You’ll have the full spring/summer ahead. Giving you plenty of time to get everything sorted.
- Also the time when your garden is looking its best, with all the colours coming out.
Cons Of Selling In Spring
- Supply of houses on the market will be at their highest
- Estate agents will be very busy, you won’t get their full attention when selling your house.
First Impressions
As the old saying goes, first impressions last. You will only get one opportunity to make the best first impression. Don’t ruin your chances of selling your home.
The reality is, when the potential buyer arrives to view your home, they will make their first impression in 10 seconds. If you make a bad first impression, you are starting off on the back foot. It will be tough to regain your lost momentum.
The key is to try and look at your home through the eyes of an observer, to help you get a good understanding of what you need to improve.
Nothing will beat a bit of old fashioned elbow grease to help get your home in top condition, ready to make that good first impression. If you find yourself in need of some inspiration, take a look at some of your neighbouring houses. If you have a neighbourhood of houses that all look clean and tidy, it can look really attractive to a potential buyer.
Declutter And Clean
It’s amazing how dirty our homes become without us even realising. Because we spend so much time there, it tends to go unnoticed for us! Thats why you need to place yourself in the buyers shoes if you want to get your home presentable to sell.
When potential buyers come to view your house, they may not see it how you see it. They might mistake your treasures and trinkets, that you love, for rubbish!
If you don’t declutter your home, you will struggle to sell it! It’s that simple.
We are allguilty of keeping half of items that no longer work, or are broken. We tend to hide them away at the bottom of wardrobes or under our beds. You must make sure that you throw away all items that no longer work, otherwise you won’t actually be making any progress.
When you get round to tackling the kitchen, make sure to get rid of any out of date tins of food! You should also throw away any chipped or broken cups, crockery and any other bits of china. They don’t look nice if you have people viewing your home.
Decluttering your home is hard-work that is easy to put off. But the benefits of doing it surely outweigh the short-term pain.
Repair And Decorate
When the time comes that you decide you are ready to sell your home, you may start to wonder whether it’s worth the investment and cost of repairing and decorating.
It’s always a difficult decision to make, as it’s hard to know what the buyer will want to see. However, it should be in your best interest to get the home in its best shape to make it attractive to potential customers.
Potential buyers will be looking at every minor detail of your home. If something isn’t working, they could find it, and it could damage the sale. Poor décor will limit the interest of buyers, they could get bored and not feel like its the home for them.
If you do decide you are going to do some redecorating, you will have to do the whole house, otherwise it will look patchy and could end up making it look worse than it did before.
We suggest that neutral colours are your best option. You can’t really go wrong there.
- Ceilings – Matt White – will help brighten up the room.
- Walls – Light Pale Grey – Simple, modern and fits well with most colours.
- Skirting – White Gloss – Helps to keep the room bright.
- Carpets- Pale Grey- Bright , clean and contemporary, although it does show dirt!
Pets!
Our pets come with their own smells that we get used to. However, these smells will not be familiar with potential buyers, and could put them off buying your house.
Although some viewers may like pets, you want to please the largest audience possible.
If you have dogs, you want to make sure that your garden is clear. We can think of nothing more off putting for potential buyers than seeing your dogs mess all over the garden!
Remove feeding bowls from the kitchen, or at least move them to the utility room.
Empty or remove cat little trays too!
When you are doing viewings for your home, make sure that your pets aren’t around. You don’t know whether they are pet people or not, so you don’t want to take any risks.
How Can Storage Help
While you are going through your home, getting things sorted and organised, ready for various house viewings, you may come across some belongings that you need to hide away for the time being. The issue is, you may not having any space in your garage or the attic, so where are they going to be stored?
Have you considered renting a self storage unit.
Renting a self storage unit could provide you with some extra relief to help get your home prepared for a sale! You could store extra furniture that made your home feel cluttered, or anything else you think should get kept out the way!
We hope you have found these storage tips helpful, and you are now well on your way to a successful house sale. And you are looking forward to the next chapter in your life!
Feel free to get in touch with our team, we’d be more than happy to discuss your storage options with you!
