Our team have been selling homes for years and we know what essentials are required to ensure a quick, efficient sale for the best price and to the most suitable buyer. These elements are the ‘Four P’s’; Preparation, Partners, Presentation and Price. Here, we look at each of these in detail and discuss why they are so important.
When something goes to plan and turns out exactly the way you wanted, it is usually down to a tried and trusted method, a proven strategy or a set of principles that get you that result. When selling your home, it’s the Four P’s…
Preparation
One of my favourite quotes is from Benjamin Franklin; “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”. He’s 100% correct! If you have not made adequate preparations for the sale of your home, you are unlikely to maximise it’s sale price or sell it quickly.
Preparing your home ready to hit the market is extremely important. It will not only ensure your property is sold faster, but can potentially add thousands of pounds to its value. Here are a few important things to consider to ensure your property is ‘sale ready’;
Declutter
Empty rooms simply look bigger. It’s a fact. However, you can’t just get rid of all your stuff a couple of hours before a viewing!
If you put your property on the market and it’s filled with clutter, it is a much harder home to sell. It makes your property look smaller and will not appeal to potential buyers who are walking round trying to imagine themselves living there.
You want viewers to marvel about how big your rooms are, not be put off by the fact there is no floor space due to unnecessary items left everywhere. Less is very definitely more in this scenario as untidy properties tend to stay on the market a lot longer than smart, clean and tidy ones. If you have items you simply can’t part with, put them into storage. Just don’t leave them lying around for a potential buyer to step over.
The few hours you spend ridding your home of unnecessary clutter could potentially add thousands to your sale price AND get the offers coming in much quicker.
Kerb Appeal
The front of your property needs to look as good as it can possibly be. Not only does it create a good initial impression, it puts viewers in positive spirits before they have stepped in the door. A lack of kerb appeal is a surprisingly common reason why properties don’t get more viewings.
If you have a front garden, tidy it up, cut bushes back, cut the grass. While this won’t necessarily add value to your home, it makes the initial impression far more appealing.
People are drawn to the front door at first glance. Make sure it stands out by giving it a fresh coat of paint if required. The colour should fit in with the look of your house, so don’t make it too garish!
The Kitchen
Like it or not, it’s true. The kitchen is the most important room in the house. Prospective buyers can easily fall head over heels with a home after laying eyes on a well-designed, stylish kitchen. We spend a lot of time in our kitchens, especially if it is spacious enough to include a dining area. It is often the heartbeat of the home where we start the day and where families get together.
Think seriously about how your kitchen looks and feels and if it needs upgrading.
Decor
You want potential buyers to be able to see themselves in your property. Consider giving your walls a fresh lick of paint with neutral colours as this will help make your home seem lighter and much bigger. Neutral colours can help viewers to easily imagine how they would adapt the rooms to their needs and strong bright colours should always be avoided. It will be much easier for buyers to move in and use the rooms straight away than if they need to repaint those bright purple or lime green walls!
Don’t forget the exterior too. Give the front door and any surrounding walls a new coat of paint.
DIY SOS
All those little jobs that need doing that you have gotten used to seeing… do them!
Holes in walls, broken door knobs, cracked tiles, dirty grout, cracked sockets and switches, torn or threadbare carpets. Many buyers want to move in without making changes and some buyers will look for any excuse to make a lower offer.
Get rid of limescale, clean tile grout, redo bath and shower seals and wax wooden floors.
Accessorise
You probably won’t want to go ‘full staging’ with showhome furniture, however, you can mini-stage. Dress any windows that are ‘naked’ with blinds or curtains. Naked windows can make a room feel impersonal and cold. Buy some cheap, neutral ones if necessary.
Plants and flowers are great for adding colour, life and light to a room and can also help on the smelly front.
Consider adding different textiles around your home. It is one of the simplest and cheapest ways to brighten up the place. Throw over a throw (!) or scatter some cushions to instantly change the appearance of boring looking furniture.
If you have dull looking carpets, laminate flooring or lino, a nice colourful rug will do the trick adding some instant character to your floor.
Partners
For a typical home sale and purchase, you will more than likely have to choose three important ‘partners’ to help, support, advise and see the whole process through to a stress free conclusion. Your estate agent, your solicitor/conveyancer and your mortgage adviser are very important appointments that you need to make. We refer to them as ‘The Awesome Foursome’!
Your estate agent will pull everything together and liaise with all parties throughout the process. When choosing your agent, put ‘value’ above everything else. Decide how confident you are in whether the agent can sell your home for the best price, to the best buyer in the quickest time.
Be very wary of cheap fees, excessive initial asking prices and over promises. The agent is there to sell your home, not to make their own statistics look good!
The choice of solicitor/conveyancer is equally as important as your estate agent. Look for the three C’s – Communication, Clarity of Service and Customer Care – we have a much more detailed blog on the subject which goes into more detail.
I would always advise you to take notice of who your estate agent recommends. They want to ensure the process is as stress free as you so it is very unlikely that they will have a poor solicitor on their recommended panel. A poor legal service reflects badly on the agent.
Finally, you need a top quality mortgage adviser, assuming that you need a mortgage! Again, look for recommendations from your estate agent as they are very unlikely to suggest a poor broker. However, do your own research too and ask friends and relatives for their recommendations.
One important thing to bear in mind – you are NOT obliged to use an agents ‘in-house’ mortgage adviser and it should NEVER be a condition of whether an offer be put forward to the vendor when you are buying.
The fourth member of the ‘Awesome Foursome’ is a good surveyor. A surveyor is not necessary on every property purchase but if you do need one, ensure they come via recommendation.
Presentation
The way that your property is presented will directly impact the interest that is generated from potential buyers. And there are two types of presentation that I am talking about; the digital presentation of your home by your agent and the physical presentation of your home by you.
We are definitely in a digital, online world when it comes to searching for our next dream home. The images and property descriptions that we initially see online, either via the property portals (Rightmove, Zoopla, OnTheMarket) or on your agents website, have a massive impact on our decision to click on the property to look at it in more detail.
You only have to go onto Rightmove, do a property search and see the difference in quality of the property adverts that appear. You should do this as part of your own research on which agent to choose. Do I really want my home advertised like that?
Look for professional photography, videos, virtual tours and property descriptions that make you imagine living there and not just where the radiators are!
The other form of property presentation getting ready for viewings. I have already talked about preparing your home to market, now, I’m talking about what to do for actual viewings.
Smells
We all know that first impressions count. A job interview, a date or viewing a property. Homebuyers make snap judgements very quickly and buyers like properties that not only appeal to their eyes but also their noses. I’m sure that you’ve read or heard about how the smell of coffee brewing or freshly baked bread makes viewers swoon.
However, in the real world it’s highly unlikely that you’ll have an endless stream of homemade loaves in the oven or a constant cafetiere on the go! Realistically the best way to create an instant positive impact on someone’s sense of smell when they have stepped through your front door are fresh flowers, subtle air fresheners or scented candles. Clean crisp bed sheets are also a great idea.
On the other side of the coin, there are things to avoid; stale tobacco, kitchen bins full of old food, and damp dog blankets!
A Thorough Clean
The most important thing you can do is make sure the property is spotlessly clean and very tidy.
Make sure you have thoroughly cleaned the kitchen and bathroom – very important rooms for would be buyers. Dust all surfaces, vacuum throughout and take care of any cobwebs. It’s also a good idea to clean the windows cleaned inside and out as grubby windows can be very off-putting and they can also stop the natural light coming through.
Here are a few other tips that could make the difference on getting that offer or not:
- Avoid viewings around school leaving time thus avoiding congestion around your home.
- Avoid viewings during the busiest parts of the day; early morning, rush hour and early evening.
- If you have a parking space, park your own car somewhere else for the duration of the viewing.
- If you have young children, could they stay with friends or relatives to minimise distractions?
- If you have pets, can they pop over to a neighbour or a friend while the viewing takes place?
- Maximise light by opening curtains and switching on lights.
- Ensure that you have not smoked or cooked anything too smelly prior to the appointment.
- Remember your kerb appeal – tidy gardens, move bins and clear any rubbish.
You only have ONE chance at a first impression so make it count!
Price
One of the key roles of a good estate agent is setting the correct marketed sale price for your property.
A good agent should know the local property market like the back of their hand. They should be aware of the market trends as well as the supply of available properties and the demand from potential purchasers. Armed with that information, the agent will know the best way to market your home to achieve the maximum price.
Typically, a home owner may invite three or four agents to the property to conduct a market appraisal to discuss the value of the property, and although the temptation may be to opt for the highest price offered, this is not necessarily the best option.
Overvaluing for Market Share
Agents also know this and will often suggest a high price to ‘test the market’ with a view to winning the instruction and perhaps reducing the price down the line. However, this is not a good practice.
It is also done to increase ‘market share’ so that agents can show their ‘best market share’ pie chart to prospective vendors at market appraisals to impress them – what it actually shows is that they have lots of properties that they can’t sell!
To further tie you in, many agents will invariably sign you up to a long contract – we’ve seen contracts up to 26 weeks! This is often done so they can try and convince you to lower your price during the contract period. Vendors are tied in and often feel that they have no choice but to reduce the price.
If the property is offered for sale at too high a price for the market conditions, then it may not attract any interest and will remain on the market and be stuck with the “there must be something wrong with it“ label.
Portal Behaviour
As around 92% of property searches are now online, it is important to understand the behaviours of potential buyers.
Buyers often use property alerts to notify them of new properties coming on the market within their specific parameters – area, price, bedrooms etc. This means that potential buyers will see the majority of new listings in the first 48 – 72 hours of a property being added to a property portal. If a property is deemed overpriced, it will often be dismissed completely at this stage rather than ‘saved’ for a later day.
Back to the issue of price reductions. Price reductions on properties for sale are very common and there are a number of reasons why market prices are lowered. However, it is important to look at price reductions from a buyers perception who won’t necessarily understand the reason for the reduction.
The more times a price is reduced, the greater chance of it attracting the “there must be something wrong with it“ label – rightly or wrongly, this is the general perception.
Undervaluing for a ‘Quick Sale’
The opposite of overvaluing to win the instruction is to undervalue the property to get a quick sale. Your individual circumstances may require a quick sale, however, that should not be at the expense of missing out on potentially thousands of pounds on an underpriced property.
Why would an agent do this? The main reason for this is workload versus fees. Whilst a seller might make an additional £10,000 on £240,000 rather than £230,000, at 1.25%, the agent will only receive an extra £125 on the fee! By achieving a quick sale, the property is off the books and they can move on.
There are several fee strategies that agents use; the usual percentage of the actual selling price, a fixed fee irrespective of the final selling price or an enhanced fee for achieving higher than the selling price.
Remember, the fee is down to ‘value’ and not ‘cost’. If an agent can get £5000 more for your home but the fee is £500 more than the agent down the road, you are still better off by £4500!
When you are having a market appraisal, ask questions on how the agent has arrived at the price that he/she intends to market the property to ensure that it is accurate from day one to avoid the potential issues described above.
A property that is PREPARED properly, with well chosen PARTNERS, excellently PRESENTED and PRICED correctly will ALWAYS have the best chance of achieving a quick sale for the maximum sale price.
Want to find out more? Get in touch today to discuss your requirements.
