Through the rise of Unique Home Stays, AirBnB and sites such as sellmyhome, more of us than ever need to show our homes online in the best way possible, whether to sell it or rent it out. In her first article for The Idealist, home staging expert Trish Pead shares six top tips to achieve the sale or rent you want on your home. Most of these tips hold good even if you’re not planning to sell your home but are welcoming guests.
Trish Pead and her Australian husband Jack, have over 15 years of experience in property developing in the UK, Europe and Australia. Having renovated, styled and sold many of their own properties, they use a team of professional decorators, carpenters, plumbers, electricians and gardeners and often supply staging furniture in modern neutral and fresh finishes to enable potential buyers to imagine themselves in the house they are visiting.
In a buoyant and competitive property market, both buyers and sellers have high expectations. Buyers want their dream home and sellers want to achieve their asking price, therefore property presentation has never been so important.
If you are selling your home, it’s actually more cost effective to invest in staging it, visually creating a lifestyle to the buyer, rather than having to drop your asking price.
1. With home staging, first impressions count
You only get one chance to make a first impression, so make it a great one. Improve the kerb appeal with a tidy garden, colourful flowers, clean windows and a welcoming front door mat.
2. De-Clutter
Remove all unnecessary clutter including books and newspapers, children’s toys, all coats and clothing, shoes and sports equipment by the front door and store it out of sight.
How to Photograph your Home
by The Idealist team
- Light — use as much natural light as possible, but focus away from the window to avoid your camera over correcting. Turn on lights and lamps too to have a range of light sources. This will balance available light.
- Don’t cut corners — remember your eye sees more than a lens (unless you have clever fisheye attachments) so to give a sense of depth, avoid shooting flat photos: take photos into corners
- Point up features — if you have a cool bathtub, or a great fireplace or view over hills, use it — people want to imaging themselves in your space and giving them interesting focal points to land on helps!
- Review your photos — we’ve all seen unfortunate pictures online where on the edge of the photo is a mirror with the photographer framed in it looking awkward, or a a bin spilling out beer cans or pizza boxes. Check what is in shot!
3. Create a Sense of Space
Buyers are purchasing their dream home, so don’t let them think that the space is too cramped and small. If your furniture is big, dark and bulky, remove some of it. You could also consider hiring new furniture to give your property a new fresh look.
Always keeps it light and fresh.
4. Clean…clean…clean…
Nothing puts a buyer off more than a grubby, smelly space, especially if it’s the kitchen and bathroom. Wash up dirty dishes or put them away in the dishwasher.
- Create as much space as possible on all the worktops.
- Clean your bathroom (and always check the loo!)
- Tidy up any teenagers messy bedrooms.
- Get your carpets cleaned if they are grubby and clean the kitchen floor.
- Change your bed linen. Even think about buying new bedding and use it just for viewing, you’ll always be able to use it in your new home.
5. Banish your pets
Take pets out during viewings and put their feeding bowls and sleeping mats etc out of sight.
6. Finishing touches
Use fresh flowers, scented candles and new fluffy towels in the bathroom.
Plump up your cushions and light a fire if you have one, to give your home a welcoming look.
If you are really struggling then hire a professional Home Stager. They will look at your property through the eyes of the buyer and rectify all the negatives, creating a ‘wow factor’ to ensure your home is ‘staged to sell’.
Find out more
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Images (c) Trish Pead and (c) saiva, tashka2000, bialasiewicz, kazoka30/ 123RF Stock Photo.
© 2018 THE IDEALIST
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