There comes a time when we all start to think about moving house. But actually, you should prepare for sale long before you think about moving. I’m not talking about researching the market or deciding where you want to live. I mean making your house look like it’s a good purchase. The way you look after your home can help in this instance, keeping it clean and tidy. But there is more to it than that, and you need to be thinking about what you want when your home goes on sale. Iimagine that you want it to fetch a high price with a lot of interested offers. Many home sellers use the asking price as what is essentially an opening bid. They expect the home to go for a far greater price, and they can do this because they have taken measures to increase the perceived value. You can also increase the actual value of your home but what you do will depend on how much time you have before your home ends up on the market.
A Few Years
If there are a few years before you are thinking about moving, there are ways to increase the actual value of your home. Two in particular come to mind and neither are cheap. But the overall value you get back when someone buys your house might be a lot more than what you spend on the improvements.
The first possibility is to add an extension of your home. Essentially, you’re physically making your house bigger, thereby, of course, increasing the value. But an extension is a lot of hard work, and you will need to get permission from the council. This can take four weeks to a few months. After that, you need to think about how much help you will need. If you have good skills with DIY, you might find it relatively simple to extend a room. But, adding plumbing or electricity to a new room is quite a deal more difficult. You will need to hire a team of builders and possibly a designer.
Be aware that the cost of an extension usually ranges somewhere between five and ten grand. You will need to make sure you have this amount of money in your budget and that you can afford to spend it. However, adding a room onto your home can quite easily increase the actual value by as much as twenty-five percent. Assuming the job is completed correctly.
The second possibility is an attic conversion. This typically requires less work, fewer permissions and will be completed by a team of professionals. The homeowner will have very little input into the conversion, except for hiring the company to do the work. By converting an attic, you can quite easily add an entirely new floor to your home. Your first step will be to secure the flooring so that work can be completed in the attic. After that, you’ll have to move any junk you’re keeping up there into storage. Then, you should look for a company that specializes in this type of job online. The conversion will take a couple of months but once it is complete the value of your home will have soared.
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One Year
One year or a little less from putting your house on the market, you should be focusing on curb appeal. This is how your house looks to the random passerby, neighbor or potential buyer. Typically, it’s about how to improve the garden as well as some features on the exterior of the home.
If you like, you can hire a landscaper. They’ll be able to advise you on what you can do to make your home look more presentable, attractive and unique. This might be improvements such as building a water feature or simply tidying up the garden.
However, it should also be noted that you don’t have to hire a professional to complete a curb appeal job on your home. It is possible to do it yourself and achieve the desired result. If you take this route, I suggest you start by cleaning up the garden. You should trim the grass as short as possible as this will make the space look more open. As well as this, you might want to consider trimming back the hedges and any trees.
If you’ve had a bad season of hot weather, your grass might be looking a little bare. This is unsightly so you might want to use some grass greener to get it looking lush again.
Finally, it’s just a case of adding a few unique features to make your home stand out from others one sale. If you opt for adding a water feature, choose a design that is low maintenance. A high maintenance water feature will put some people off buying because they will fixate on the added upkeep cost.
A Few Months
When there are only a few months until you move, there’s still a lot that you can do to improve the perceived value of your home. You might want to start by buying some new furniture for some of the rooms. Remember, you’re going to take this with you, and it will still look stunning in your new home. But, by buying it before you move, you can make your home look more stylish. Nantuckit furniture company has a great selection that is sure to make your home look stunning. This will encourage people to make bigger offers because they can see themselves being happy living there.
As well as this, you might want to think about just decreasing clutter in some of the rooms. But don’t make the mistake of moving a lot of your furniture out the home. This can put the idea in the buyer’s mind that you are looking to make a quick sale. If they think this, they’ll make a lower offer..
Finally, when showing buyers the home, remember to fill the house with lovely scents. This could be freshly baked goods, brewed coffee or some lovely flowers. These type of scents can help the buyer believe they have found their dream home, encouraging them to make an offer in the first place.
Rebecca x
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