Moving Home

In an uncertain property market it is perhaps especially important to create a careful strategy to market your home to achieve a swift sale at the best possible price.Your Estate Agent is of course well placed to advise you. In our experience, Estate Agents are often reluctant to provide candid advice for fear of upsetting possible vendors. The following is offered as a helpful checklist of issues to consider.

Preparing Your Own Property For Sale

• Walk past your own home and try to look at it objectively as if for the first time. How tidy and attractive is the garden? Time spent in keeping lawns well cut, flower beds weeded and planted ultimately will pay dividends.
• Are there obvious signs of disrepair? Look carefully at the gutters, roof, windows and paintwork. A potential buyer may be deterred if they know that money will have to be spent catching up on basic maintenance.
• Does the property look inviting?

Internally

• Consider the decorative state of the property. If the paintwork is scuffed or chipped consider redecoration. At the very least consider washing paintwork in heavily used parts of the house. If you are doing any decorating use light, natural colours to enhance the idea of spaciousness.
• Consider how tidy and/or cluttered the property is – including ensuring that wardrobes and drawers are not over loaded. De-clutter the property to create a sense of space. Consider making donations to charity shops or at least storing surplus items out of the way in the loft or the garage.
• If you smoke remember that your prospective purchaser may not be a smoker! Give particular consideration to re-decoration and the cleaning of carpets, curtains and upholstery. If this is not practical, thoroughly air the property and wash the paintwork.
• It may be obvious but spring clean the property.