Top Tips on how best to present your property so it sells quickly

Here are some top tips to follow if you would like to sell your property quickly and easily.

The Top 20 ‘turnoffs’ for people viewing properties are:

1. Damp patches, stained walls and ceilings
2. No garden 
3. Bad smells  (from pets, cigarette smoke, damp, food, etc)
4. No parking
5. Poor natural light or dark rooms
6. Unfinished building work
7. Small rooms
8. Small kitchens
9. Bad DIY
10. A dirty house
11. Stone cladding, render, pebble dashing on outside walls
12. Outdated bathrooms
13. Outdated kitchens
14. Artex / textured  ceilings
15. Plastic windows
16. Overgrown garden
17. General untidiness
18. Cluttered rooms
19. Dated or over the top décor
20. Large trees over shadowing and potentially undermining structure

Some of these you can do nothing about, but there are plenty you can address. Following on from this, here are 9 Top Tips for presenting a property to sell or rent at its best.

1. Repair where you can, especially little things, like broken hinges, cupboard doors, etc.
2. Get a friend or neighbour to look at your house with a fresh pair of eyes so they can spot all the niggly bits, as once we live with them, we stop noticing them.
3. With damp problems however, you should find the source and repair it. NEVER just paint over the damp.
   
4. Clear the clutter: remove one third of everything possible, ie: a third of ornaments, books, dishes, furniture, clothing, everything, and store them off site or in the loft. In reality potential purchasers should not look in your cupboards, but if they do and they are cluttered it will send the wrong message to them.  Remember, you are selling them a lifestyle.
5. Look at property from the outside in. Potential purchasers make their buying decision from the pavement so makes sense to make outside look good. Ideas for this are: paint the front door a bright solid colour; dark blue or red seem to work best. Clear the area outside your  front door so it looks clear clean and fresh so you can approach it without clutter . Clear and tidy the front garden if it needs it.
6. Clear clutter from behind the front door too: kids’ wellies,  junk mail. Surplus coats and jackets, etc.
7. Depersonalise the property as much as you can. Remove family photos. When people see family photos, they feel like they are intruding in your life, so it’s best not to make them feel uncomfortable, and just remove them. Remove anything that might threaten or offend a potential buyer: eg: a gun collection, whips, even your dog should not be in the house when people are viewing.
8. Go and  visit show homes on new housing developments and get ideas of what the professionals do to present a house at its best. They have glass top tables so that the rooms feel more spacious, mirrors opposite light sources to reflect the light, and many other tips and tricks.
9. Lastly, Clean the property thoroughly. Clean everything, floors, carpets, ceilings, windows, light switches, taps, everything! This is the most important point of all. If you can afford the time, hire a professional cleaning company to do this task.This step will eliminate at least 4 of top 20 put offs.

These 9 points will sort out most of the top 20 put offs with very little cost, and it’s amazing how few people do them. If you do them your property should sell quickly and you can then move on with your life.

Good Luck!!