Style your home for sale: What buyers look for when inspecting your home
Take a look at the images below. They are both of exactly the same home.
Which picture makes you want to buy the home?
The first one looks like a nice apartment but it looks a bit small and it's hard to see where the furniture might go. In the second picture you can now where furniture might go, there is a sense of the lifestyle you might have living there and the neutral yet modern furniture and accessories generate emotion.
In today’s competitive real estate market the way a property is presented is critical to generating buyer interest and excitement. A warm, contemporary and inviting home that has been styled to show off lifestyle and generate emotion in potential buyers will sell faster and often for more money than its empty or non-styled counterpart. Buyer expectations are high and their understanding of design is increasing due to the rise of design influences such as magazines, websites and reality television shows.
When buyers come to an open for inspection they have their own agenda as they look at your home. The quirks in your home that you may have forgotten about or have learned to look past over the years will stand out as soon as they walk in. Because of this it is important to ensure your home looks show ready before any potential buyers come through. You want to generate a strong (positive) emotion in buyers as it is known that when a buyer is emotionally invested in your home they will be more likely to pay more money for it. My goal for this article is to walk you through exactly how buyers think and what they look for when they inspect your home. By the end of the article you will walk away knowing exactly how to create an environment that will make buyers fall in love with your home. Plus at the end of the article you can download my free pre-sale checklist - so no excuses for not getting top dollar come auction day!
Before you list your home for sale the most important thing is to emotionally detach. No matter how long you have lived there you now need to be objective about your home and try to see it in the way that buyers will see it. Does it need painting? Do the gardens need attending to? Are there blown light globes or cracks in the walls that need patching? The more of this work you can do before buyers come through the better off your sale will go. If buyers see small problems around the home they automatically start to question what else might be wrong and will look closer at other problems. In addition you need to declutter and style the home so that buyers will look past some of these things.
Easy and relaxing lifestyle
The number one thing you can do to enhance the value of your home is to create a sense of an easy and relaxing lifestyle. Buyers want to be able to picture themselves in your home and see themselves living there. If you have the budget for it hiring a property styling company to come and style your home can be an investment that will really pay off come sale day. A good stylist will know your target market and will help you prepare your home so it pulls on the heart strings of buyers. If it’s a family market dress your smaller bedrooms as cute children’s rooms so as to draw in the mothers who will picture their children living there. Place toys and accessories that will make kids fall in love and not want to leave. For apartments aimed at young professionals put in more on-trend and modern furniture and accessories that will create a relaxed home that is low maintenance and easy to entertain in.
If you don’t have the budget to hire a stylist then work with your agent to find out how you can make the home appeal to your target market. If helpful I also offer consultations on how to do this yourself - book in here. We can work through how to declutter the home and help you arrange storage for furniture and belongings that should be removed during the open home period. Some simple fixes might include tidying up bookcases, removing toys, taking away family photos (as buyers don’t want to picture your family living there), think about furniture placement and whether it could be rearranged for create a sense of space. If you have dated window dressings you may like to remove these during open homes as this will create more light and will be less distracting to buyers. In addition, dress rooms as they are intended to be used. If you have a bedroom being used as an office try and hire a bed to turn it back in to another bedroom. If you don’t want to buy furniture you can normally rent this from furniture companies for a small fee and return at the end of the sales campaign period. As a general rule, the more bedrooms you have the more your house will sell for. Most buyers find it hard to picture a room having a different purpose so you want to make that job easy for them, even if it causes your some inconvenience for 4-6 weeks of a sales campaign.
Little or no work to be done
Do as much cosmetic work as you can to improve the look and feel of your home. Investments in time to do small jobs around the home will pay you back massively when buyers come through the home. Consider whether you might need to : tidy up gardens (replace any dead plants with new ones, mow the lawn), paint the home, put in new carpet or get your old carpet steam cleaned, polish old floor boards, fix cracks in walls or ceilings, replace blown light bulbs, buy new (preferably white) bed linen, buy new towels for the inspections (that you put away in between), give kitchens and bathrooms a deep clean including removal of any mould or mildew.
Beautiful kitchens and bathrooms
It’s no secret that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses. If you have a modern kitchen and bathroom then with a good clean, some modern hand soaps (e.g. Aesop, Bondi Wash), new towels and some styling accessories your buyers should fall in love with what you have.
If your kitchen and bathroom(s) are a bit old or dated there are still things you can do to improve the look and feel. Styling is the cheapest and easiest way to do this. The pictures below, from some of my recent projects, will give you some ideas of how you might set up small vignettes of accessories in these spaces. If you have more time or money to spend you might like to consider changing fixtures and fittings to something more modern, changing benchtops, painting cupboard doors or putting down new flooring. All of these things could be done with products from the local hardware store and shouldn't cost too much.
Curb appeal
First impressions really do count so make sure what buyers first see when they pull up in your street is as good as you can make it. Keep your lawns mowed, think about painting the front of the house or the gate. You may like to consider giving your front door a new colour – in some areas a pop of colour on the front door can really bring your home to life and make it look more modern. Yellows or blues have been popular in recent years. Think about putting some modern pot plants near your front door. Keep the front area clutter free and tidy. This is where your agent will likely stand to meet buyers and take their contact details so they could be standing there for a few minutes taking in the first look at your home. Are all the plants in the front garden healthy and alive? If not, think about replacing these with a hardy plant that is easy to care for – your local garden centre should be able to give you some advice on this if you don’t have a green thumb (like me!).
Open for inspection days can be incredibly busy and stressful for buyers. In one day they can find themselves looking at 10-15 properties or more. Often open for inspection times clash and buyers can find themselves trying to fit in 2 or 3 houses within one 45 minute time slot. When I’ve bought houses I have been known to pull up to a house and drive off again if it doesn't look right from the outside, so make sure you do everything you can to lure the buyers inside.
Natural light
Good natural light is normally one of the top 3 things on a buyers list of requirements. You want to create the impression of great light in your home, even if you don’t have it. Some people are lucky in that the orientation of their homes naturally brings in the light they need. But others will need to work harder to achieve this. If your house errs on the dark side then think about some of these ideas:
removing blinds or window dressings to draw in more light.
open any shutters or blinds.
make sure windows have been cleaned inside and out (you would be surprised how much this little step can help).
turn on all the lights you have during open for inspections
move any furniture away from windows or doors (as they will likely be obstructing some of the light).
Modern living
Most people these days are looking for homes that have easy, open plan living. Parents want to be able to cook in the kitchen while their kids are doing homework at the dining table. They want to be able to chat to their guests in the lounge room while they prepare a dinner for them. If your home doesn't have an open plan living space is there a way of creating this without needing to renovate? Can you move furniture or room functions around to create a better flow? Think about who will be buying the home and how they might live there then dress the home ready for this.
And make sure the master bedroom looks as grand as it can!
Top Tips!
This article has outlined some of the main things buyers look at when they go to open for inspections. In summary there are three main things you should do before you list your home for sale:
1. Look objectively at your home in the way buyers will see it. Find the flaws and try to correct them. If you can’t work out what the flaws are then ask a friend or your estate agent to give you an honest appraisal. It could make you uncomfortable but a realistic opinion on your home will allow you to try and address it’s weaknesses before buyers start to point them out to you.
2. Declutter, tidy up and fix up any major problems that buyers will notice straight away
3. Style the home with the lifestyle of your target market in mind. See below if you need more help with this step.
Good luck!
Clare x
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