Top Tips for Increasing the Selling Value of Your Home

The best time to sell a house is spring. With the birds singing in the morning and the days growing longer, the year is just beginning. Lambs frolic in the fields and the snowdrops are just beginning to push their heads through the soil. It’s a time for new life and new beginnings, with plenty of people looking for a fresh start. But even if it’s the end of the line for you and your property, you should still be looking to breathe new life into your home. ‘Staging’ – the art of preparing your home for viewers – is important. Not only will it ensure that your property is the hottest commodity on the market, with people snapping your hand off to take it from you, it can also add thousands to its value. The best part? You don’t have to spend a lot of money renovating it. There are several small things you can do to freshen up your home without bankrupting yourself. The following tips are guaranteed to make it look like you’ve invested thousands, and might well bring you thousands in return…

De-Clutter

Let’s be honest, we’ve all accumulated excess junk. It fills every nook and cranny, spills out of every cupboard. Well, no more. Give it to charity, put it in storage or give it to a friend – but don’t let it clutter up your house. Potential buyers must be able to envisage how your home would look if they were living there. Not everyone is blessed with a vivid imagination, so make things easier for them and give them a chance to see all of the space you’re offering. It’s a good idea to remove bulky furniture and replace it with smaller pieces too, as this will make the rooms look much larger.

A Little Lick of Paint

It’s all about making your home seem bigger, lighter and airier. One of the simplest ways to achieve this is simply to repaint your walls in a nice, neutral colour. As well as creating the impression of space, a neutral colour scheme helps viewers to more easily imagine how the rooms would look with their furnishings: where bright purple walls are much more indicative of your personality than that of your buyer, creams and beiges are less personal and make it easier for buyers to imagine how the room would look with their own stamp on it.

For extra brownie points, ensure that you have a nice, bright, freshly painted door to welcome viewers to your home. After all, first impressions are everything.

Spring Clean

Many buyers want to move in without having to making any major changes. Try to accommodate this desire. You might be the one putting the work in, but you’ll also be the one reaping the rewards. Make any minor changes required: fix holes in walls, and replace broken doorknobs, cracked tiles and torn or threadbare carpets. These little fixtures are best bought from specialist companies such as the Handle Store (for doorknobs) who have plenty of variety, providing ample opportunity to buy fittings which really complement your home.

Also, be sure to clean everything until it sparkles. Get rid of lime scale, clean and repair tile grout, wax wooden floors, get rid of any unpleasant smells and hang up fresh towels. This will make your home seem so appealing you might not want to leave – and hopefully it will have the same effect on your buyers.

The Smell of Home

Bad smells might well be the single biggest turn off for prospective buyers. Who really wants to wrinkle their nose up every time they step through the door? Don’t just mask odours, fix them – whether your drains need clearing or your bins need washing.

If you’re a smoker, place bowls of vinegar around your home and leave them for three days. Although the vinegar has a rather unpleasant odour itself, this will soon disappear once you open the windows, and it will take most of the stale cigarette smell with it.

If bad smells detract, good smells can draw you in and make your house seem homely and alluring. Although it might perhaps be too time-consuming to bake fresh bread or brownies before every viewing, brewing fresh coffee can work almost as well.

None of these little tips and tricks requires a large outlay, but all can reap significant material rewards. Although some involve a little elbow grease, hard work pays pretty well in the long run; before you know it, you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.