Selling Your Home: The First Steps
Selling your home can be an exciting, and inevitably stressful, time. Whether you’ve found the house of your dreams or you’ve decided to step off the property ladder for a while, the first stage in the process of moving home is to put your house on the market.
You will need to decide whether to sell through an estate agency, who will take care of many of the details for you, or at auction, or even to sell the property yourself online. Whichever option you choose, your aim will be the same: to secure a reliable buyer as soon as possible. In order to find a buyer for your home, you’ll need to present it to its best advantage, so here’s our quick guide to help you.
How To Sell Your House:
- De clutter. One of the most important things about selling a house is ensuring that viewers can actually see the property clearly. If features are obscured by bulky furniture, and floors and surfaces are covered with clutter, potential buyers will only see a small space that is hard to keep tidy.
- Clean up. As well as being clear, it’s very important that surfaces, floors, walls and bathrooms are clean. If you’re pressed for time, it might be worth considering employing a cleaner for a few weeks while your house is on the market, to ensure that you aren’t caught out by viewings arranged at short notice.
- Fix any problems. Try to see your home with fresh eyes. Fixing broken fencing or drainpipes and repairing any broken fittings will show that you have cared for your home and that it is more likely to be in a good condition. If you’ve always loved your orange walls but visitors aren’t so keen, now could be a great time to put on a quick coat of a more neutral paint in order to appeal to more people.
- Sell your lifestyle. To want to buy your house, a viewer will need to be able to imagine him or herself living in the space. Some people swear by the scent of freshly baked bread, while others put fresh flowers on windowsills and tables to give a good impression. Think about the sort of people your home may appeal to and make the most of its best features to help them to see themselves living there.
Getting your home looking great is an important step in selling your home. However, it’s helpful to have a good understanding of the property sale process so that your sale runs smoothly. Look out for our next article in the Selling Your Home series to shed more light on the legal requirements that may affect your property sale.