Dress up Your House to Sell

By: ulysses Mood: full of life Date: 03/05/2010 06:13:05 Music: None

It is true that, even though your house is on the market you still have to live in it. Human beings cause mess and untidiness, that is certain tiffany jewellery, but there is a need when trying to sell your house to keep such untidiness to an acceptable level.

The best assumption you could make is to know that an agent might ring you with a buyer ready to view your house at half an hour’s notice. You therefore need to have your home in a condition that requires thirty minutes preparation for viewing. Easier said than done, I know, but the agent has marketed your house as a haven of calm and contentment and that is what the viewer must find when he walks through the door.

There are a few things you can do to make your house easier to prepare for viewing at short notice:

• Clean all the windows and glass doors, mirrors and shower screens and make sure they stay that way. This is a job which cannot be completed in thirty minutes, so it is an ongoing cleaning task to be kept up. Open windows to the garden if it is a sunny day, it looks attractive and advertises you have a nice garden to look at.

• The garden needs wedding dresses to be kept mown and weeded and any nasty oil spills on the driveway dealt with so the area looks expansive and clean.

• Clean all the floors and make sure you have a working vacuum cleaner to run over the rugs or fitted carpets just prior to viewing.

• Make sure your children have suitable containers with available space to accommodate any toys which have been left out; you can then throw them into these containers and sort out where they belong later, when the viewer has gone. Similarly, keep a container handy for stowing things like remote controls, pens and pencils left on tables, and other family detritus.

• If you have pets, pick up their food bowls and beds and put them away somewhere until the viewer has gone. Not everybody can tolerate pets so it is well not to advertise yours. Obviously if your dog is wandering around that is quite okay, but make sure that any animal droppings are cleared from lawns and pathways and that you bath your pets regularly to be sure the house does not smell of dog, cat, rabbit, or any other species.

• The kitchen and bathrooms must be completely spotless. Fresh fruit works well in the kitchen and make sure the kitchen towels are fresh. Pay special attention to chrome taps and pipes and keep a supply of fluffy, colour matched towels on hand to display the bathroom to advantage. When the viewer has gone, remove them until the next viewer comes, that way you will not be constantly washing them. Ensure there is new toilet tissue and new soap near the wash basin – it looks nicer than used soap and perfumes the room.

• Pick up dressing robes and discarded clothes from bedrooms and bathrooms and put them away. Clear away any shoes from bedroom floors and hallway. All these are personal items and of no interest to the viewer. Put away excess family photographs in frames, they are a distraction.

• Look at your house with a stranger’s eye if you can, and try to imagine what you would like to see if you were the viewer. Put away old newspapers and magazines, and try not to clutter the table surfaces with correspondence ED Hardy. Ashtrays are an absolute no-no. If you have them, wash them and put them away in a cupboard. Smokers need to realise that the smoke can be smelled by a non smoker, so the house needs to be heavily perfumed with anti-tobacco air freshener to disguise the smell of cigarettes.

• Light perfumed candles or aroma burners in the main reception rooms, so the viewer associates your house with delightful smells.

• If you have a particularly unattractive trailer of an old car which you are renovating, move it somewhere until after the viewing. If you have a particularly unattractive teenager you are renovating, move that somewhere too.