Author Archives: Sam

When you get a call from your estate agent to book in a viewing, are you ultra accommodating, eager to please? Do you change your plans in order to make sure that your viewers can view your home when they want to?

Let me ask you another question – when is the best time to view your house? There are usually several factors to consider, including traffic flow, and I suggest you need to decide in advance which are the very best times for someone to see your house at its best, and arrange your viewings accordingly. Here are some of the times to avoid wherever possible:

School times – if you live anywhere near a school and parents have a tendency to park near your house when collecting and dropping off.

Commuting hours – it’s not easy to compete with the noise of the traffic when you’re in your garden telling your viewers how quiet the area usually is.

Bin days – no street looks nice with a row of wheelie bins waiting for the bin men.

Crowd noise – if you have a football ground or other event venue nearby, keep an eye on the schedule and avoid any large and potentially noisy events.

As well as these times to avoid, think about when your home actually looks its best; when the light streams through the kitchen window for example. Lots of buyers are keen to make sure the garden is well lit at key times of the day, so show yours off and arrange the viewings accordingly.

A keen buyer won’t be put off by restricting the times they can view, and I’ve heard many stories of buyers viewing properties at simply the wrong time of day. By helping your viewers to fall in love with your home before they see it at a more compromised time, they will themselves overcome these objections, without it becoming the deal breaker it can be.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

First impressions count for a lot in the property market, and the garden can often get neglected. Here on Home Truths we think the outdoor presentation of your property is vital, after all, it’s what catches a potential buyer’s attention. A lot of people take care of their garden in the summer only to skip maintaining it as the colder months approach. Yet if your home is on the market, keeping your garden tidy in the autumn and winter is just as important.

Here are some of the things you can do to keep your garden tidy throughout autumn and winter:

Give your lawn a good sweep

If you leave a dense layer of leaves on your lawn, they will kill the grass underneath, resulting in problems in the spring. If your garden is regularly covered in leaves, one of the best things you can do is to make a leaf mould. Alan Titchmarsh recommends stowing damp leaves away for a year in a black bin liner until they become a crumbly brown mould that is ready to use.

Early autumn is also the best time for lawn care—sow fresh seeds on bare patches, trim plants, and remove invasive weeds.

Start sowing plants for the cooler months

Since growth slows in autumn and almost stops completely during winter, early autumn is the best time to get rid of those ugly, empty containers and reuse them with plants that grow in the colder weather like pansies and viola, bulbs like grape hyacinths, and shrubs like euonymus, evergreen sedges, and evergreen ferns.

You can also start growing some winter vegetables. Good winter vegetables include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and kale, all of which flourish in the cooler temperatures.

Onions, shallots, and leeks are also great choices, and these can be planted in the garden in autumn ready for an early spring harvest.

Apart from getting started with planting, The Telegraph also suggests you start moving tender plants like canna, citrus, and young olives indoors or to covered areas. Less hardy plants need winter protection, so make sure you have covering materials like fleece.

Feed your plants and improve your soil

Autumn days are your last chance to add fertiliser into potted plants before the cold months begin. iNews state that it’s best to use low-nitrogen fertilisers, to avoid soft growth that will make your plants more vulnerable to disease and frost. These kinds of fertilisers promote robust frost-resistant growth, perfect for winter.

Autumn is also the most important season to improve your soil. Besides adding fertiliser, adding organic material like compost, shredded leaves, and organic nutrients help provide the soil microbes with food, and protect the soil from being too bare during winter.

Sort out your pond, fountain, and bird feeders

If you have water installations like ponds or fountains, now is the best time to scoop out leaves that may have blown into them. Remove any pond plants that have died, too, to prevent them from rotting and sinking to the bottom, which can upset the ecological balance of the pond. If your garden pond does not contain any fish, you can cover it with plywood or a tarp. Don’t forget to turn off the pumps and filters for the winter, as they can freeze and damage the equipment. Take down bird boxes and empty them as old nesting materials, unfertilised eggs, and other debris that may carry diseases. Make sure you also clean out feeders and regularly refill them.

Clean your garden shed, sharpen your tools, and check your fences

Don’t think maintaining a garden ends with the plants and soil. Your shed is still part of your garden. Keep it neat and tidy by sorting through your tools, cleaning them, and repairing or replacing any that have become damaged.

Don’t forget your fences, too. Check for any shifting in the soil, cracks, or any insect infestation. If any of these are present, it is best to replace your fence with pressure-treated panels to prevent any damage in the future. The bulk of the garden fences showcased on Screwfix come with a manufacturer’s guarantee, which shows how modern fences are much better equipped to last longer. Besides ensuring your fences are made of good-quality materials, make sure you pick a design that will complement your garden and potentially increase the value of your home.

Like the old adage says, first impressions last. And if the first thing a potential homebuyer sees is a poorly kept lawn, a rotten fence, and a patchy garden, the top quality designed interior of your home could be irrelevant.

AUTHOR BIO: Emerson Rosenzweig is a marketer by profession and is based in Bristol, UK. Having grown up with a passion for all things landscaping and gardening, Emerson appreciates the importance of maintaining a beautiful garden not just for boosting property value, but also for health and wellness. When he’s not at work or tending to his garden, Emerson enjoys visiting the national arboretum and going for long runs.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

Where do your viewings end? After you’ve shown them round the house, do you then take them into the garden? The problem is with doing this, is that as they are already in their garden, possibly in sight of their car, it’s very easy to say goodbye and for them to simply go at that point. What you really want them to do, is to have another look around the house alone, to give them chance to talk to one another in private, and ask their partner, “what do you think?’.

The answer, is to plan the viewing in advance. Decide where you want to start – I’d always advise the best downstairs room in the house, to create the maximum first impact (leave all the doors closed by the way, so they don’t wander into rooms in the ‘wrong’ order) – then plan the tour of the rest of the house in the most natural order. Upstairs, it’s sometimes a good idea to show the bedrooms in reverse order, so not only does the master bedroom feel bigger by comparison, but you also end the house tour on a high note. Then take them out into the garden, but come back in the same door you went out of. If this is a patio door, you may find you need to ask them to take their shoes off, or leave slip covers by the door, so they don’t trail mud inside on a wet day. Then go back into the best room downstairs, and say “why don’t you go and have a look around again by yourselves”; very few people will refuse this offer, and you could add “I’ll be waiting in the kitchen when you’re done but don’t hurry” so they know they can take their time, and that you won’t be following them round, so they are free to talk in private.

So, avoid the garden close; instead, take control of the viewing, make sure it lasts at least 20 minutes to half an hour and you will have much more chance of your viewers having the time and space to fall in love with your home. Just as you once did.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

Whichever of the four main property portals your house had been listed on – Rightmove, Primelocation, Zoopla or OntheMarket – you need to make sure it is working for you. Check that it is:

Punchy – does it stand out above the other properties?
Good front shot – is it stale? Is it seasonal? Can it be improved?
6-8 photographs – too few is not enough to whet a buyer’s appetite, but too many and they will think they don’t need to view. Are your internal images good enough?
Brochure download – can your brochure be downloaded and printed as a pdf?
Floorplan download – check your floorplan loads large enough to read, and print it out to ensure it’s clear enough

Think of your online advert as an extension of your brochure; it needs to really sell your house, and encourage a buyer to book a viewing. After all, that’s what it’s there to do!

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

When I was a young teen, I was lucky enough to have a pony. He was a beautiful Welsh Mountain palomino, called Biscuit, and I adored him. My very favourite thing to do was to explore the countryside with him, where we then lived in rural Lincolnshire.

One day, we were out riding, and I spotted a small copse that looked interesting. Finding a way in, I urged him on, hoping to find some little pathways to ride, but he seemed unusually reticent. I pressed my heels into his flank, but he really didn’t want to move. Annoyed, I dismounted, and attempted to lead him by his bridle but he dug his heels in and would not be budged. I was perplexed. He’d never done this before. I remounted, and rode around the periphery of the copse, hoping to fool Biscuit by finding another way in.

Then I saw it. The big red sign saying DANGER – SWAMP! I was stunned, and very grateful to my lovely pony, who had sensed the danger when I was completely unaware of it. His sixth sense alerted him, and though I’d tried to override his reluctance, thinking I knew better, in the end, he proved that he was far wiser.

So why am I telling you this?

Because when a homeowner tells me they are about to put their home on the market with an agent I know is not a good choice, I feel the same sense of dread that Biscuit did! My protective instinct makes me want to shout – DANGER – WRONG ESTATE AGENT!

I’ve been selling houses for a long, long time. And an awful lot of them too. I’ve also helped hundreds of homeowners identify the right agent to sell their home. What I’m trying to say is, like Biscuit, I know more than you do. I’m wiser and more experienced, and if you don’t want to fall in the swamp that can be the house selling landscape, please listen to me. When I have the wrong estate agent in my sights, I’m always going to dig my heels in and say, “No, not that way”.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

When you’re selling your home, you might want to ask your agent if you can be present at the house viewings. It’s your home, after all. However, there are quite a few things to think about before you decide to trail after the agent and the nice couple with the two children at the viewing…

Off putting – If you were looking round a home, would you want the sellers on your heels? A seller presence can make buyers feel awkward. Buyers need to feel comfortable as they look at a potential home; it’s a big decision for them, and they really want to be able to snoop everywhere, whether this means looking in cupboards or peering out of windows. If the seller is standing there, buyers might feel reluctant to explore, and therefore might actually miss aspects of the property they’d be able to see if they had freedom to search without caution. This could be loss for them and you.

Chatty – As much as you probably want to tell the buyers every exciting aspect of your home, less is sometimes better than more when it comes to a sale. Too much chatter can be off putting when they just want to look around and ask a few questions.

Emotions – When it’s your home, it is easy to bring your emotions into the sale. A buyer could ask the agent a question about an aspect of the home they don’t like or want to change, and after the viewing could ask for a reduction in price. If the seller is at the viewing, they could presume the price reduction is due to the cosmetic changes, and will want to refuse to change the price. Emotions and house sales don’t mix.

Are there any exceptions to being present at a house viewing? If you prefer to be at home during house viewings, sit in the garden or another room while the viewing takes place. This means that you’re around for questions if the buyers have any about personal aspects of the property. If you hear any negative comments, resist jumping on the defense, and see it as something that you could actually change to increase the chance of your home selling.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

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The Six Secrets of Fabulous Property Photography

There are many elements that go into making great property photography: the weather, the skill and experience of the photographer, and the features of the house itself – they all go into making or breaking the shoot. But did you know there are lots of things you can do to increase the chances of achieving the best images of your house? You need to ensure the images of your house not only do it justice, but also more importantly, indicate the kind of lifestyle that a buyer can aspire to. Here are some of my suggestions to do just that:

1. Clean and clear – we all know that tv can add inches to a person’s waistline, well property photography can take off inches! Rooms can look cluttered and meanly-proportioned, with dark corners and distracting colours. Clear surfaces and floor spaces, take up rugs where necessary, and clean everything until it sparkles. Light and reflected shine are the best ways to show off the size of your rooms. (Note: your photographer may want to use a very wide-angled lens, but I would caution against this; at best it can give the rooms very odd angles and at worst, mislead a viewer.)

2. Go shopping! Any self-respecting property lover adores seeing inside the homes of the rich and famous, but one of the reasons these houses look so fabulous is that they are staged for the shoot. Steal their style! Shop for staging accessories and give your home the star treatment:

Kitchen:

Croissants
Champagne
Fruit – stick to one type per bowl. Strawberries, limes and green apples look great.
Rustic board of artisan breads and cheeses
Flowers – in keeping with your home style; eg hand-picked posy for a farmhouse, Calla lilies for a contemporary home.

Living rooms:

Church candles in fireplaces
Flowering plants
Lifestyle magazines and coffee table books

Bathrooms:

Fluffy white towels
Luxury spa-style toiletries

Outside:

Flowering plant for patio table centre
Pretty tealight holders or church candle lantern

3. The better you brief the photographer, the better the images will be! Go round the house making a note of any particularly attractive angles or features, then call him as close as possible to the day he is due, so your requests are fresh in his mind. Suggest he makes notes, or follow up on your conversation by emailing him a summary. Talk to him about the house, and suggest any particular features of interest in the house and garden, that best portray the character and style of the home. Ask him to ensure that in addition to his standard shots, he also takes some ‘lifestyle’ images, eg bowl of fruit, coffee on an outside table, roses in the hallway. Suggest he also tries some ‘vignette’ shots; these are shots framed by a doorway, or in a mirror.

4. Make sure the photographer knows what time of day the sun will be on the front of the house. Think also about evening shots, and when the sun will be on the garden. This may necessitate two separate visits so make sure the photographer has allowed for this.

5. Follow him round! Plump cushions, move chairs, take away any distracting objects, remove bins and washing. Make sure you can see what he’s photographing so you can anticipate any potential for the room not looking its absolute best. Put lamps on, or turn lights off, to keep the ambient light at the right level. A good photographer will really appreciate your help and will guide you throughout.

6. Keep your images seasonal– it’s very telling to see a house advertised in September with daffodils in the garden, or in January with Wisteria in full bloom. Keep your property photography as close as possible to the current season. This often means asking your agent to revisit to refresh your images with new ‘foliage’ shots. At HomeTruths this is something we routinely arrange every three to four months. After all, you may not want your viewer to know how long your house has been for sale – and why give them an excuse to make a low offer?

Some improvements to the images can be made in editing, like putting in a blue sky or taking out a skip! But remember that if you aren’t absolutely delighted with your photography, you can ask for it to be re-taken. Insist on perfection and the viewers will turn up in droves!

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

A gentleman called me recently, having struggled to sell his house for several months. I took a look at his property advert online and saw a house that was full of mismatched furniture and cluttered rooms. “Have you considered using a home stager?” I asked him.

He hadn’t heard of the concept. In fairness, whilst it’s something that the Americans do to sell their properties, it’s not an idea we have embraced in this country yet, though sellers who are struggling often find that it can make a huge difference to the interest they get from buyers.

So let’s look at your living room, and how best to present it for sale, and wow your buyers:

1. Your suite – I often visit homes that are on the market with old, sagging sofas that haven’t been in fashion since the 1980s! When the homeowner tells me they plan to replace their suite when they move, I urge them to do it now instead, to help the house become more saleable. Old sofa equals dated house, or that’s what a buyer will think. A new modern sofa will really add a stylish look to your living room and prove a worthwhile investment for you.

2. Your carpeting – how is your carpet looking? Is it heavily patterned, darkly-coloured, or both? Would a professional clean refresh it, or does it really need replacing? A dirty, worn and dated carpet will give the impression that the house hasn’t been looked after, so if you want to portray a well-presented home, it may be worth investing a few hundred pounds in a new, neutral carpet.

3. Your walls – you don’t need to paint everything magnolia, but you do need to present a buyer with a décor that they will like, as much as you can do. Whilst you haven’t got mind-reading powers (I assume!) few people will be put off by neutral, modern colour schemes. If you have a feature wall in say, vibrant purple, you are risking alienating anyone that doesn’t like purple, so play it safe and go for neutral shades.

4. Your lighting – this can really make or break the impact of your living room. Downlighters and table lamps can create a cosy atmosphere; uplighting can add a splash of drama. If you have overhead lighting, it’s usually best to leave that off and create a real feeling of homeliness with your additional lighting choices.

5. Your cushions – if you can’t justify a new sofa, perhaps new cushions will help to refresh the look of your living room. A recent client of mine bought a really inexpensive cream Ikea sofa, then added some lovely colourful cushions in rich fabrics, to add a real feeling of luxury without a big spend.

6. Your accessories – have a look around your living room at your ornaments and other accessories. Are any of them new and stylish? Or do you have little collections of old-fashioned ornaments you’ve gathered over many years? If they have sentimental value, why not parcel them all up now ready for your forthcoming move? That way you can clear the space for some pieces that are in keeping with current home style and perhaps that match your new colourful cushions.

7. Your art and pictures – if your walls and surfaces are covered in personal family portraits, it’s time to take them down, and box them up for your move. Generally speaking, it’s best if art is neutral and not distracting, like the kind of bland style you see in hotels. Lots of mirrors and large pictures in a style and colour to match your living room, will lift your presentation and add a feeling of coordination and harmony.

8. Your tv – these days, many living rooms are dominated by a large black box, aka your tv! Unless you have one of those high-tech mirrors that magically transforms into a tv at the touch of a button, you need to consider how you are going to diminish its impact however you can. Try rearranging the furniture around the fireplace or other feature, rather than grouping it around your tv. You may not be able to live with the furniture in that position, but it’s worth placing it especially for your photography and viewings.

9. Your ambience – how does your living room feel? Does it have a nice sense of calm and tranquility that makes it feel like somewhere you want to be after a busy day at work? Consider the way it smells, and sounds, as well as the way it looks. Lightly scented candles and some background music can really enhance the feeling of your living room and provide a restful space so that your viewers can relax.

10. Your finishing touches – before you have your photographs taken, or book a viewing, take a last look at your living room with a critical eye. Take away anything that doesn’t improve the look of the room, like wastepaper bins or piles of magazines, and add a vase of flowers and a beautiful coffee table book, and voila! Your room is ready.

Home staging really doesn’t have to cost much, but it can pay dividends! If you have a great staging tip of your own, please let me know in the comments below.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

Most estate agents have great cameras these days, and will tell you they can get just as good shots as a pro photographer. After all, cameras have come on in huge leaps and bounds, and yesterday’s pro camera costing thousands is today’s amateur camera, costing less than a couple of hundred.

Meanwhile, Sam (me) tells you that you must have professional images to sell your house effectively and that an amateur’s efforts just won’t cut it.

So who’s right?

Me of course!

Here are seven reasons why you need a pro on the job:

1. A pro will see what an amateur won’t. When he has a tripod set up, he can evaluate the shot in a considered way, and move out of the way anything that might sabotage it: a cat bowl, a rubbish bin, even a colourful hairbrush. Anything that may distract a viewer from looking at the main features of a room.

2. A pro can deal with light levels. How often do you look at a photograph of a house interior on Rightmove, where the windows are just white boxes? This is what a pro calls ‘blown out’ and it is because an amateur doesn’t have the expertise to cope with dark corners and light streaming through the window, at the same time.

3. A pro sees shots everywhere. Unlike an amateur, who will generally just get one wide-angled shot of every room, a pro will see a creative shot in the turn of a banister, or across a garden feature towards the sunshine. He is trained to look for the shots where they occur, not snap what’s there.

4. A pro will add ambience. He knows when to turn lamps on, and when to rely on the sun coming through the window instead. He is adept at capturing atmosphere like a roaring fire or flickering candle.

5. A pro takes his time. He has allocated a certain amount of time for the shoot, often several hours, and will walk round the property and plan the shoot carefully in his head. He takes account of where the light falls, and its path over the course of the shoot.

6. A pro has professional integrity. He needs to get the very best shots possible of your home – that’s his job. Whereas for an agent, the photography is just part of a very complex, demanding job, a pro photographer can instead dedicate himself to the job of getting those perfect images, no matter what it takes.

7. A pro will deliver an exceptional finished result. It can easily take almost as long to edit a shoot as it does to take the photographs in the first place. In fact my sister, the fab wedding photographer Kathy Ashdown, takes 40 hours to edit a wedding that took her perhaps 12 hours to shoot. White balance, levels, saturation, sharpness, and lots more all have to be accounted for and enhanced so that the finished image is practically a work of art.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

Women are three times as likely to pay the asking price for a property as men – at least according to Propertyfinder.com – does this mean that all sellers should be targeting the women in the hope of getting the best price?

Men and women view properties in different ways; in the main, the average British male when looking at property focuses on the structure and location. How many bedrooms, how much space, how big the garden is, and where the property is in relation to shops, transport etc. in other words, the bare facts of the property.

As a consequence, he will often keep looking until he finds exactly what it is he’s looking for on his checklist, viewing as many properties as is necessary until he finds the right one. In contrast, the average British female does her homework first, and relies far more on her gut instinct. She’s generally more interested in the ‘feel’ of a place, and trusts that she’ll know the right house when she steps inside, regardless of how many ticks it gets on the checklist. In addition, the way in which men and women offer on property differs strongly; men often see the art of negotiation as a fight, and they’re up for it. Wielding their offer like a sword, they’re brutal and determined not to give an inch. Statistics show that only 5.5% of men pay the full asking price, and 22% offer less than 90% of the asking price. Women buyers, on the other hand, are much softer and 17% of them just offer the full asking price of the property they want. 90% of female buyers offer 10% or less below the asking price, seemingly anxious not to lose their chosen property.

With this in mind then, how can you make your property more appealing to that lucrative female market? Well, start off by making sure it looks and smells clean and fresh. Women are much more sensitive than men to nasty smells, so make sure your house doesn’t pong! Clean clean and clean some more, until every nook and cranny of your house is gleaming: she’ll notice. Appeal to her feminine side with flowers and bowls of fresh fruit. A man wouldn’t be seduced by such blatant ploys but a woman will. In the bedroom, keep bedding absolutely fresh, and if possible, new. In the bathroom, appeal to her sense of luxury with lovely fluffy towels, scented candles and special toiletries. If she loves your house when she walks through the door, you’ve hooked her. And if she offers too low for you, hold out for the best price, chances are you’ll get it.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.