Maximise your home’s sales potential
First impressions count and making the right impression on buyers can mean extra dollars in your pocket when selling. In part two of a two part story Deb Tapp outlines steps five to 10 in a 10-step process to maximise your home’s potential.
IF YOU’RE thinking about selling your home, make sure you’ve done all the preparation in advance first. Interior design guru Vanessa Webb knows how important presenting a home for sale is, in order to attract buyers and to attract the best price.
As owner of Wellington interior design business Dress My Nest, Vanessa has helped numerous clients prepare their houses for sale over the years.
She’s got a 10-step process to help other vendors maximise their home’s potential.
It’s not about making major changes, says Vanessa, it’s more about going through a to-do list of low-cost chores like decluttering, repairs and maintenance, cleaning and touch-ups, all of which will make a difference.
Steps one to four (featured in last Saturday’s Dominion Post, March 16, cover steps one to four - decluttering, maintenance, dressing each room and growing each room.
See your house as a potential buyer would. To do this, remove items like family photos, put away any sensitive information such as bills or mail, and remove anything personal from the bathroom.
Replace the likes of a massive family photo on the wall with a nice, neutral piece of art that will appeal to the majority, says Vanessa.
“In the bathroom don’t leave your toothbrush on the vanity or in the shower, or wet towels on the towel rack.
“You want potential buyers to imagine that this could be their home and they could have an amazing life here, not feel like they’re intruding.”
Repaint your walls in neutral tones to ensure buyers can focus on the space not the colour schemes.
Then add layers of de´ cor, and that provides the perfect excuse to go shopping, says Vanessa.
She suggests adding nice cushions on the sofa, along with a throw, make the beds better than you ever normally would, fold the sheets over nicely, and use lots of cushions on the beds to make them look inviting.
Have a new set of matching towels in the bathroom, go for a colour that suits the rest of the de´ cor, and not white.
“It’s important to co-ordinate everything, then it feels like a nice, well put-together space.”
Think about how your house smells.
“If people walk into your home and it smells amazing, it will give them that feel-good factor and a lasting memory of it, as opposed to a musty, dirty smell which is equally memorable for the wrong reasons,” says Vanessa.
Make sure you air the house out constantly when it’s on the market, and don’t overpower it with strong cooking smells.
“Cook on the barbecue rather than cook super strong curries, or fish or pork inside!”
If the house smells musty, clean it thoroughly from top to bottom and have the carpets professionally cleaned to get rid of any mould.
While Vanessa doesn’t have any issues with smell in her home, she has still placed a few scented candles and defusers around her home to give off a consistent smell.
Fresh flowers don’t go amiss either.
Bright, cheerful rooms look bigger and more inviting.
Make sure every room is as bright as possible – open up windows, pull back curtains and take down any net curtains.
Change light bulbs from warm gloomy yellow bulbs to bright white light bulbs to give rooms more light.
Any darker rooms should be freshly painted white and illuminate internal spaces like hallways and bathrooms to add depth to the spaces.
Add floor and table lamps in dimmer areas too, and even in homes that are flooded with light turn all the lights on during an open home.
“Our entry is the darkest area of our house – we have a glass front door but we’ve also got a lamp in the entry way to give more light and a mirror, which makes a room feel bigger and brighter.
“We also have wallpaper in our entry which, although it’s rather a personal choice, we always get comments from people who love it so we decided to keep it there as you’ve got to have some wow factors even if they might be polarising.”
While many people buy flowers for their open homes, add healthy potted plants to each room as well.
“I have invested in some beautiful white pots I know I’ll use at my next house, and I’ve planted some beautiful big plants in them, a mix of faux plans and real plants,” says Vanessa.
“Plants are really good for bringing fresh air into a home, and they give a home a sense of life.”
Think about your styling for the photo shoot, says Vanessa.
Get inspiration from magazines, Pinterest and the Internet rather than other real estate photos.
“Look at your home from an interior design point of view, you want it to look aspirational, like a magazine shoot rather than somebody’s personal space.”
To do that, style the coffee table, the bedside table, the mantel piece, borrow items if need be and make each room look as large as possible.
“With the bedside table, for example, add a little vase of flowers, a lamp and maybe a book and group them nicely in a set of three so they look more like a display than just how you woke up in the morning.
“In the kitchen put everything away, including the coffee machine, so your benches aren’t cluttered.
“In our house we’ve used the same de´ cor style throughout the whole house for consistency, because you want all the rooms to feel connected in some way.”
By sticking to the 10 steps, Vanessa knows she has created that feeling of aspiration in her fourbedroom, two living area home set just a street back from Paraparaumu Beach.
“You’re really selling a dream, a lifestyle, and we’ve gone through every room with that in mind.”