Tag Archives: viewers

At this time of year, a viewer can bring more than dreams and visions to your home: the bottom of their shoes can leave a lasting reminder of their visit!

Asking your visitors to take off their shoes is often awkward, particularly if they are somewhat elderly, or not especially mobile. Of course, if you’re not present for the viewing, you may return home to find an evidential trail of footprints, so you need a non-intrusive, fail-safe way to protect your carpets without upsetting anyone.

Your viewers won’t dirty your Axminster deliberately of course, but they may be so engrossed in looking at your beautiful home that they will forget to look down. It’s even worse if they have a wander round your garden (which you absolutely want them to do) then come back through the house (which you may not).

My suggestion is those oh-so-fetching blue shoe covers. Leaving a few in a basket by the door is a gentle message that you value your home, and you expect your visitors to show it the respect it deserves. (By the way, that goes for your agent too: check out my post “The Obnoxious Agent” for how not to do it.) This visual clue will also remind your viewers of show homes, where they are more commonly in use. Not a bad mental connection if you think about it.

So, where to get these covers? Well, I did some trawling on the net, and these are the cheapest I could come up with: at only £4.50 for 50 they are a bit of a bargain, but as I haven’t used this company myself, please do your own research too. Let me know how you get on!

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.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to look at a house in Lancaster that was proving difficult to sell. A large Victorian house set over five stories, the family owners had loved it for twenty years, and now it was time for another family to take over the reins.

Whilst the house had some beautiful original features, it was a very ‘lived-in’ house, and the large kitchen and three bathrooms were really ready for replacement, as were the carpets throughout, but once the new buyer were to do this, the property represented an excellent investment. However, with more than a viewing a week for a year and no offers, buyers clearly couldn’t see past the presentation.

After a long discussion with the lovely couple who owned it, it was clear that there wasn’t really any budget to speak of, though they did agree to put £500 into the pot for use wherever I thought would be best.

£500 for a house that spanned five stories was going to be a challenge! After much thought, I decided to use it all in one place – the entrance hall.

It was a beautiful lobby, with elegant proportions and original features, and with some careful planning, the budget could make a real impact. This is what we did:

Took up the faded, tatty carpet, and hired a floor sander to prepare the floorboards, then varnished them to bring out the lovely deep colour of the wood.
Repainted the banister a lovely warm cream and the walls a soft green.
Bought a cheap rug from a local home store where it was on sale.
Added a large mirror from a junk shop and pinched a console table from one of the bedrooms.
A vase of flowers and some pretty ornaments gathered from around the house completed the look.

It looked absolutely beautiful. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of it, but the one below is very close to how it looked when we’d finished.

So what happened then? The very next viewers to walk through the door offered the full asking price. I know it seems incredible that only updating one relatively small area of the house would make such a difference to how the buyers saw the whole property, but it was the most important part. As I’ve discovered time and time again, if your buyers are given the chance to fall in love with your home in the first 30 seconds, the rest of the house is far less important.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to get our Selling Secrets direct to your inbox each fortnight, here’s the link you need – https://www.home-truths.co.uk/selling-secrets/

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.

Did you know that the sound your car door makes when you close it is almost certainly manufactured? When we are looking to buy a luxury item, the cues we experience are often subconscious. In the car showroom, you get into the beautiful car you have your eye on, and close the door behind you. If you hear a hollow, tinny sound, you may well feel disappointed, and subconsciously feel that the car itself is of a lower quality than you were hoping for. If, on the other hand, it closes with a reassuringly expensive click, you will feel confident that this reflects the quality of the whole car.

The engineers of the Japanese-designed Acura TSX took this attention to detail to the next level when they designed a unique “bumping door seal” that emits a special sound of “quality” when the door is opened and closed. That’s obsession for you!

So – how can you ensure that your house emits sounds of quality so that buyers will feel they are viewing a luxury home? The details to pay extra special attention to are:

Front door – this needs to open and close smoothly, with a nice, bold handle and a satisfying click when it closes.

French windows – these too need to open easily, without the need for wrenching handles, and kicking the frame!

Taps – buyers often turns taps (and showers) on to check water pressure. The difference between a cheap DIY store tap or shower control, and a really high quality one, is very obvious, particularly to a buyer of a prestige property.

Fitted cupboards – how do your cupboards fasten? Do they make a discreet and smooth ‘click’ when they close? Or do they jam, needing a good yank to open them? Or worse – are they fitted with cheap magnetic plates that don’t do the job they’re supposed to do, and hold the door closed properly?

A little investment in these key areas will pay dividends when you’re selling your home. Get these little details right, and subconscious signals of quality though they may be, to a buyer they are tremendously powerful signals that they are buying a premium property.

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.

Does your home look better in the sunshine? Of course it does! In the rain, everyone’s house looks gloomy and sad. A bit of sunshine makes the garden sing, and your home warm and welcoming.

We can’t control the weather for viewings, but we can control our viewings for the weather.

Check the forecast – if you know that all week will be wet and horrible, but Wednesday is forecast to be sunny, then tell your agent to book the viewing on the Wednesday! Part of making sure your home looks its best each and every time someone views, is keeping an eye on the weather too. Sunshine puts a smile on everyone’s face, and it might just have your viewers reaching for their cheque book.

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.

We know setting prospective buyers loose on your home to play Simon Cowell can be daunting; suppose the dog has an ‘accident’ or the neighbours decide their bonfire just can’t wait until November 5^th?

Yes, buyers can indeed be difficult to please, but here’s the good news – we know exactly how to please them. Putting the effort in, pays dividends when it comes to getting that all important ‘quick sale’!

Follow our 9 tips to get your house big fat ‘yes’s’ across the board:

Improve your kerb appeal

We know you should never judge a book by it’s cover, but sadly, people often do – a lot of people will drive around first before deciding on which properties to visit.

The exterior of your home is just as important as the interior, if not more so for that all-important first impression. Peter Illingworth Estate Agent says ‘you must make sure every part of this visual picture looks at its best. If the interior is beautiful they may never see it if the exterior is shabby. The pavement in front of your home should be swept clean if necessary, any weeds that are growing should be removed, unsightly bins hidden and any litter picked up.’

Invest in some doggy day-care

As much as you love Rover, not everyone’s a fan. Potential buyers don’t want to walk in and smell cat litter, or walk out with dog hair stuck to their clothes; it gives the impression that your house isn’t clean. Hire a dog sitter or at least exile your furry friends to the garden whilst showing buyers around.

Come up smelling of roses

Or lilies, daisies, tulips – you get the idea. A bunch of flowers goes a long way!

Or there’s always the oldest trick in the real-estate book: pop some cookies or freshly made bread in the oven and intoxicate your buyers with that warm fuzzy feeling, instantly bonding them to your home – or so they say.

Whilst whipping up freshly baked goods each time you have a prospective buyer in your house may be impractical, you can always ‘brew some fresh coffee’ or buy flower-scented candles for an alluring welcome buyers are sure to appreciate. At the very least, ensure all ashtrays are out of the way and Fabreeze is always on hand.

Keep your hardship to yourself

If you think buyers will hear your life story, feel sorry for you and consequently sign on the dotted line, you’re sadly mistaken. Whatever the reason is for selling your house – be it debt, death or your husband running off with the next-door neighbour – keep schtum! Nearly a quarter of the cases of off-putting behaviour in the My Online Estate Agent survey involved sellers unburdening themselves about the reasons for their marriage break-up. Save it for your shrink, please.

Clutter is killer

Get rid of it – and sharpish! Buyers want to be able to imagine themselves living in your home, and family photos, swimming certificates and your grandma’s ornaments make it that bit harder. If it’s too painful to get rid of them permanently, why not put them in temporary storage?

Keep it PG

According to research by My Online Estate Agent, one in five buyers have encountered ‘something unusual’ when being shown around a property. A total of 22 per cent of house-hunters have been confronted with weird collections of sex-dolls and teddy bears, while 11 per cent have had to avert their eyes from naked pictures of the owners. Awkward.

Less ’50 shades’ more ‘vintage lampshades’, please.

Lighten up

Light, bright and airy – three words to take as house-selling gospel. Especially when it comes to kitchens and bathrooms, open plan is in fashion and buyers want as much space as possible. Colour scheme-wise, think whites and creams, or pastel hues.

Bathrooms and kitchens are two of the most important rooms in a property and should be immaculately clean and tidy when showing a property to viewers – again accessorised to emphasise light and space.

“Wildly coloured bathroom suites were regarded as the ultimate in taste in the 1980s, but can look pretty hideous to modern eyes,” says David Newnes, director of LSL Property Services. He claims such a fitting could knock up to £8,000 off the value of your property. Wowzers. Oh, and keep it clean people! Research by Rightmove among 4,000 buyers found that dirty kitchens and bathrooms were the biggest turn-offs – so get out that Mr Muscle before every viewing.

Putting the effort in, either on your own or with the assistance of a specialist property company can clearly pay dividends when it comes to answering the question – ‘how to get a quick sale’

Stay Switzerland

Fancy yourself as the next Kelly Hoppen? This is not the time to test out your skills. The thing to remember is your taste is not the same as everyone else’s. Keep colours neutral and decoration to a minimum to make your house appealing to as many buyers as possible.

Be warned: additions can be made but unsightly adornments cannot be unseen! Offer an empty shell for buyers to build their dream home around from scratch – your estate agent will thank you for it.

Enlist the experts

Don’t fancy dealing with estate agents, viewings, and the general stress that comes with finding a buyer? You’re not alone.

www.sellhousefast.uk buys over 300 houses a year, direct, from all over the UK! Simply apply online, agree a price and set a date for a rapid and hassle free sale – often completed within four weeks. Oh, and they buy houses regardless of condition, meaning everyone’s invited.

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 a buyer looks at the photographs of your house, particularly online, where the images are often largely devoid of context, they will make certain assumptions about your house that you need to be aware of. By ensuring that every image tells the right story, you will avoid giving a buyer a reason not to view your home.

No front image of house – this could indicate that the house is not very attractive from the front, or that there is a ‘disamenity’ (a disadvantageous feature in the local environment) close by: this could be a pylon, a bus stop or perhaps an industrial building next door. Whatever it is, not showing a front photograph will make a buyer expect the worst.

Only the back of the house shown – it’s true, of course, that many houses have a more appealing back view than front. However, it is really important to show the front of the house nevertheless, even if it isn’t used as the leading (main) image. Buyers often do ‘drive-bys’, in other words, they will drive past the house, without booking a viewing, in order to check out the position and location of the house. Some research indicates that there are up to 15 drive-bys for each viewing booked, so if you have 4 viewings in a month, chances are you could have had up to 60 drive-bys! In order to identify the house, a buyer needs to be able to recognise it from its front photo, which they won’t be able to do from a rear view image.

No kitchen shot – the kitchen is probably second only in importance to the outside and garden of a house, and when buyers – particularly lady buyers – are searching for a property online, they will look for a photo of the kitchen. If they don’t find one, they will assume – usually correctly – that the kitchen is not worth photographing. Immediately, this could raise a concern that there is a lot of work to do in the house. Don’t raise an unnecessary ‘red flag’ for a buyer; better that you make sure a kitchen photograph is included, no matter how dated your kitchen may be, as it won’t be as bad as that of the buyer’s imagination.

Artist’s impression – this is often used by developers to show what a new home will look like once it is built, and could mean that the house in question is little more than a building site at the moment. Most buyers, unless in a particularly buoyant market, would prefer to see a tangible building, so it’s important to get a photograph of some description onto the online advert as soon as possible.

Pets in the photographs – I was looking at properties with my husband yesterday, when I clicked on an image of a living room, showing a huge golden retriever lying on the carpet. Now I’m a dog lover, but my husband most definitely is not. Immediately I could see him thinking that at the very least, all the carpets would need replacing, and who knows what state the lawn would be in? Safer to keep pets out of your photographs – you can’t offend a pet lover if you do, but you can alienate the non pet lovers if you don’t.

All photographs tell a story to some degree; make sure that the only story a buyer can infer from your images is one which they want to be part of.

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.

If you’ve been trying for some time to sell your house, without success, it may be time to take a fresh look at your presentation to see if it really appeals to your target market. It’s not easy to do, as you are so familiar with your surroundings, so I’ve put together a list of places to go to get inspiration, and perhaps motivate you to take your house up a notch, and really wow your viewers:

1. Pinterest – if you haven’t yet heard of this nifty site, you soon will do. It’s essentially an image portal, organised into personal ‘pin boards’. A search for ‘cosy’ for example, will lead you to a huge gallery of home and interiors images, all tagged ‘cosy’ by the contributors. You can simply browse this gorgeous site for hours, and if you like, create your own pin boards, grouping the images you come across by room type, style, colour and so on.

2. House to Home – another beautiful site, owned and maintained by the publishers of the top interiors magazines such as 25 Beautiful Homes and Ideal Home. Here you’ll find thousands of images of rooms and gardens, organised by category, style or colour. Once you’ve found a room style you like, you can even ‘Pin’ the image to Pinterest to save for later.

3. John Lewis – a stroll around any store will leave you breathless with excitement and full of ideas! If you find that the prices are too rich for your budget, have a look in Matalan, TK Max Home or Argos for cheaper alternatives.

4. Local showhomes – these will give you loads of ideas for your own home. If they are appealing to the same market as you are with your home, copy as many of their ideas as you can. They have been carefully designed for maximum appeal to that particular buyer, so you need to compete strongly to make your house really stand out.

5. Home Stagers – hiring a professional home stager to give you ideas for refreshing the look of your home can cost as little as £150, and you can even ask them to draw you up a shopping list, to your budget. An invaluable resource when you’re struggling to sell your home. Try Home Stager Network to find a local stager.

So there you go – now you have no excuse to sit back and do nothing! It’s a tough old market out there and to beat the competition you really have you up your game. Happy browsing :o)

If you enjoyed this post and would like to get our Selling Secrets direct to your inbox each fortnight, here’s the link you need – https://www.home-truths.co.uk/selling-secrets/

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.

I once was asked by a client to help him sell his beautiful 18th Century oak-framed barn in Cheshire. Despite selling a home in the £500,000 plus bracket, my client was still only in his twenties, having been initiated into the very successful family business from an early age. His two passions were motorbikes and partying, and not necessarily in that order. There was evidence of his interests throughout the house, from a fully-blown games room where the dining room should have been, and a full sized wooden motorbike in the middle of the living room. He also had a “chillout” room in place of one of the bedrooms, complete with walls adorned with erotic art. Needless to say, it didn’t go down that well with the family buyers……

I told him there were two possible solutions: one – find a buyer exactly like him. Two – change the house to suit the likely family buyer. As he’d already tried the first strategy for over a year without success, I persuaded him that mine had a higher chance of success. He reluctantly agreed. Out came the motorbike, to be replaced by lovely rustic coffee table; the chillout room was transformed into an elegant guest bedroom and the games room was dismantled, and a large, family-sized oak dining table installed. On the day of the photographer’s visit, I had a last run round the house, hiding unsuitable magazines, tidying away sixteen pairs of trainers, Playboy towels and bedding, and instructing him to put the several crates of empty beer bottles out for the recyling. The fresh flowers, fruit and just-for-show toiletries were placed carefully and the resulting images made all the effort worth it.

We re-launched in the early summer, with an open house, and almost a dozen families turned up to see the barn, including some who had previously viewed and dismissed it. The agent had done a great job of selling the ‘makeover’ and the new glossy brochures were snapped up and ooooed over.

The result? Two offers at the asking price. A contracts race ensued and my client found himself moving out just six weeks later. Last I heard he was opening a pub….. well, he needed somewhere to display his ‘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.

It’s very frustrating when you aren’t getting viewings. I spoke to a lady recently who has only had one viewing in three years! Even having your home for sale for a few months without a viewing is worrying. It’s normal to get an initial flurry of viewings in the first few weeks on the market, and for that interest to wane a little as the weeks and months progress.

But what can you do when viewings peter out altogether? You know what your agent will advise – if they haven’t already. “Drop the price” they will tell you. So what else can you do to revive interest, other than dropping your asking price?

Ask for your Rightmove Property Performance Report. This is data your estate agent has access to, inside the Rightmove console. If they are not using Rightmove, they will be able to access similar statistics within Zoopla, On the Market or Prime Location. Property listings with images and floorplans, that are updated regularly, have the best performance metrics on Rightmove and the other portals. The Report also shows the number of times your property listing was clicked on over the last 7, 14 or 30 days, together with a comparable against the previous period. Additionally, this statistic can be compared against similar property listings on Rightmove, so you can see whether your property advert is competing well or not. A ‘similar’ listing is typically what a searcher would see alongside your property when they search on Rightmove, and therefore could be considered as your ‘competition’. If your home listing is not performing or competing well, it could be a strong indicator of the reason you’re not getting viewings on your house. Check your photographs – do they really show your home at its best, and are they up to date? If your outside images reflect a different season than the current one, ask your estate agent to re-photograph your house and garden. Then check your next performance report to see if your numbers have increased.
Revisit your property description. Firstly, draw up a profile of the kind of person you think is most likely to buy your home. Age, status, motivation for moving, and so on. Then write down a list of adjectives about your house that you think would most appeal to these target buyers. Look at your property description – does it need rewriting to incorporate these key words? Your agent can help you with this. I’ve changed property listings in the past to better appeal to a family, or to someone looking for a change in lifestyle. Words matter, so make sure your written description best sells the primary features of your home, to the person most likely to be attracted to those features.
Commission a home stylist. Often for less than £200 a professional home stylist will look at your home with a critical and unbiased eye and advise you on what you can do to make the most of your house: usually there is very little expenditure necessary, but small changes can make big improvements in attracting the right buyer.

Final thoughts

When you discuss your home’s saleability with your estate agent, explain that you’d like to improve the presentation and the marketing, before considering a price drop. Until those two elements of your home’s saleability are as good as they can be, you won’t be able to eliminate the possible reasons for the lack of viewings.

Happy 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.