Selling – A New House

The Dedicated Designer – 6 Tips for Giving Your Home a Pre-Sale Makeover

Guest Post by Hubert Dwight

House envy. . . . The struggle is real. . . .We have all been there.

You walk into someone’s home and your eyes dart from corner to corner in disbelief that everything is so in-place and perfect.

Trying to play it cool, you say something like “I like what you have done with the place”, while inside you are screaming “I WANT TO LIVE HERE!”.

Well folks, that is just the sentiment you need to capture when you are prepping your house to go on the market.

The smell of fresh baked cookies and a reasonable price are not going to cut it in today’s real estate landscape.

So, for those looking to put their house out for sale, read ahead for 6 tips for giving your home a pre-sale makeover.

1. Help is Available

If you read that intro paragraph and immediately started to panic, don’t worry, you have options.

So style and “home-making” is not your specialty, you are certainly not alone.

Many people preparing their home for sale will turn to a trusted company for property styling in Melbourne.

Good styling companies will turn any house into a high end, classy and elegant home.

With a competitive buyers market, styling your home is an integral part of selling your home quickly for the price you are after.

2. Love your Lighting

Ambient lighting, correct wattage, and purposefully placed candles will transform the feel of your house.

Make sure very room in your house has a cozy, welcoming lighting rather than harsh high watt bulbs that make anyone cringe.

Don’t underestimate the power of candles in your house either. Investing in some high quality candles will whisk potential buyers away to their favourite beach, or coziest fire place, all whilst standing in your living room.

3. Bring the Outdoors In

Indoor plants can have a calming effect by bringing in the natural healing properties of mother nature.

Plants are not only aesthetically pleasing, they are scientifically proven to improve health.

Indoor air, like outdoor air, can contain harmful pollutants.

Indoor plants can actually act as a natural air filter, making your house have that fresh, clean air feeling – something any home buyer will be drawn to immediately.

Feeling like your green thumb is a bit out of practice? . . . Don’t worry, help is available in choosing the best plants for your indoor space.

4. Soak up the Seasons

You know that feeling when you go to your mum’s house at Christmas and it is perfectly decorated and you get all warm and fuzzy inside? There is no reason not recreate this feeling all year long, with every season. A bowl of fresh cherries in Summer, fresh tulips in a vase in Spring, a bowl of pinecones in Winter. These small touches will really make a house a home.

5. Size Matters

Stressed about the small size of some of your rooms?

Boost the perceived size of any room with large feature mirrors.

From bathrooms to small second bedrooms, mirrors make rooms feel larger and also increase the amount of natural light reflected into a room.

It also is a way for people to literally see themselves in the home making a quick purchase more likely!

6. Beauty and the Bathroom

Did you know the average human spends 1 hour 42 minutes in the bathroom per week?

That is a lot of time! So you should put in some serious love into your loo.

Creating a mini-vacation feeling in your bathroom will highlight the room as a feature in the house.

A clean, crisp, well-organised bathroom will catch the eye of any style savvy home-buyer.

Plush towels, fresh flowers, clean and crisp surfaces and a scented candle will transform your bathroom into a holiday escape.

You don’t need to remodel to get that feeling, small style tips can make all the difference!

Selling your home is a scary and exciting time.

Taking the time to assess your style, and how it will fare to a wider audience is an essential part in the process.

A pre-sale makeover may be just what you need to pass on your property to the next owners.

Whether you seek expert guidance from a company, or re-style room by room, take the time to create that “wow” moment for anyone who walks through your front door.

You never know who will insist on making that their front door after one look at your perfectly styled house!

Don’t Forget The Carpet Cleaning

There are lots of reasons to think about professional carpet cleaning:

Moving to your new house from a rented place you will want to make sure you get the bond back!
Selling your existing home and wanting to make sure it look at its best.
Or just a clean up after a big party!

In our case we have been in our current place for around 4 years and the carpets needed a bit more work than our Dyson could deliver.

We used a Melbourne based family business called Wizard Cleaning.

They turned up on time, worked quickly and left the carpets looking 100% better.

At $60 to get carpets in 3 room cleaned why would you look at hiring a machine and doing it yourself?

Wizard also offer a range of other services such as

Duct cleaning
Tile and Grout Cleaning
Upholstery Cleaning

If you live in Melbourne why not give them a try?

Their phone number is 03 9323 1474

Disclaimer; I was provided with a complementary clean to help my evaluate the service

Garden Photo – Fail

One of the rules of getting your house Ready for Sale is to remove your pets, and hide their baskets food bowls etc.

If you don’t you might find your house advertised on the internet with a photo of your dog ‘leaving a deposit’ like this!

Its amazing how people miss these ‘interesting details’ when they are rushing round taking photos.

This is a real photo used to advertise a house that I found on the very funny American website uglyhousephotos.com

Staging Your Old House

Presentation of your existing house, or staging as its now known, is important to make sure you get the most money for your new house.

Probably the best look is a de-cluttered home. If you remove all the homely touches it can look a bit sterile

Here are some more tips to make sure it looks the best for the photographs, and for Inspection Days.

Outside Keep cars out of site, mow lawns, remove weeds, bottle & glasses for an outdoor setting.
Kitchen Remove all fridge magnets, no dirty or clean dishes in sight, i.e. not like this photo!

Bathrooms Matching bathroom towels, remove toiletries.
Bedrooms Beds made neatly with clean linen, Just a light and a clock on bedside tables.
Living Rooms Get Fresh flowers and fill the fruit bowl, remove any bright cushions.
Pets Remove pet basket and bowls and make sure the pet is somewhere else.
General De-clutter including removing toys and perhaps some of the furniture
On The Day Turn on Heating in Winter and air conditioning in Summer. All lights to be on.

If you want professional help there are quite a few people offering to provide staging assistance. A basic service will cost $2-3,000 rising to more than $10,000, which will include loaning different furniture.

To find out how builders stage their display homes see this link: Show House Tricks

Negative Investment

Negative Investment can be quite a problem…..but what is it.

Well it’s when the house is worth less than you paid for it. This can be a real issue if you need to sell the house.

There are three ways you can find yourself in a Negative Investment Situation:

Falling House Prices

For a long time a lot of people though that house prices always go up.

Over the past five years prices have been more up and down. Now they seem to be on the way up at the moment but there is no guarantee that will continue.

Unfortunately there is nothing any of us can really do about this problem in the short term. If you can wait long enough you should get your money back. In 1991 we built a house in Country Victoria for $130,000. Ten years later we couldn’t sell it for the original cost. After renting it out for another 5 years we were able to sell it for $200,000.

At least with this type of negative investment it will also typically affect the price of any house you buy when you sell your existing house. That’s good if you do keep in the housing market……….but not good if you have to sell and enter the rental market.

Extensive Upgrades

I have already mentioned that the builder provides the Typical Display Home with upgrades that increase the cost of the base house by 50%.

If you go for a similar level of upgrades you may not get your money back. This is because:

When you put the house on the market you will be competing with houses in the same suburb that didn’t cost as much. Those owners are happy to sell for less than you. This means you may only get minimal interest from buyers.
Taste is very individual. For instance prospective buyers may not be too keen on the ‘Special’ tiles you paid thousands extra for.

If you keep the house for a long time,say 20 years, this effect of the upgrades diminishes as your original costs wil be long forgotten and buyers will be expecting to remodel.

Over Development

Over Development is the extreme version of upgrades. Its when you put the biggest possible house on your block….. Often loaded with upgrades.

With this you may now have a house that costs two or more times that of the average house in the suburb.

When you come to sell the problems are:

For the price you want most people will prefer a smaller house in a more expensive suburb.
Generally people want outdoor space in proportion to the size of the house. A narrow gloomy strip at the sides and back won’t cut it.

The trouble with Over Development is it can have a permanent effect on the value of the property.

Why I Used Jenman System Agents To Sell

Unless your new house is the first house you own you are going to have to sell your existing house.

Lots of people in Melbourne use auctions but I have never been very keen on that approach.

We have now sold two houses using Jenman System Agents and have been very satisfied.

We recently sold our home in Wydham Vale using Brian Mark Real Estate of Werribee. Previously we we sold an investment property in Chadstone about 7 years ago using T G Newton Real Estate of Oakleigh

If you look through their websites you will see lots of reasons for using them but the three advantages that I really like are:

They are quite clear that their duty is to you as seller of the house.

In my experience they go all out to get the best price for the house rather than tell buyers you may be willing to drop the price.

They carefully vet all people that are taken through your house.

Much better than ‘Open for Inspections’ when criminals could ‘case’ your house anonymously by giving a false name to the agent.

You only pay when the house is sold

I have often wonder if those advertising campaigns some agents charge you for upfront are really advertising the house for you, or the Agent to get more interest in all his offerings.

If there is a local Jenman Agent why not give them a try?

Disclaimer

I have not been paid for this post and did not receive any discount on the sale of either house