What is she on about? She doesn’t even own her own home – I hear you say. But that doesn’t mean one day I will be moving out of this rental property into my own house and my landlord will want to re-let or sell the property fast. I still want this house to look attractive to potential families looking to rent it, or buy it depending on what my landlord wants to do. I have treated this house as my own, I think I will be leaving it in better condition that when we moved in and here’s what I have done to make it more sellable. 

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES
SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES
  1. Start with your front garden (if you have one) it is the first thing that people will see when coming to view your home. When I moved into this house there were weeds everywhere, no flowers or anything. I have since planted things like rose bushes and lavender, which does not take a lot of maintenance and looks pretty. Make sure you stay on top of the weeding so that it looks tidy. We have two very large plant pots that we put either side of the front door, it looks a little more inviting and when we moved in a lot of friends commented on what a difference just those two pots made. 
  2. Fresh paint is much more appealing than dingy, tired and stained walls. Give the inside a lick of paint, especially the walls where there is a lot of natural light beaming across them. It will be the first thing picky people like me will notice! Don’t go for a white as that is more expensive, go for an off white (cream or oatmeal)  colour as you can get those tubs on offers in most stores. 
  3. If you have fancy rugs, patterns and really brightly coloured floors it might be better to tone them down. Get rid of rugs that are bright and patterned, not everyone will have the same taste as you. Try to stick to minimal patterns and mellow colours. Like pastel colours or lighter shades of the colours you have. I don’t mean go out and buy things specifically but if you have a rug in your hall way that is bright blue and pink striped, just hide it when you have people viewing your property. They need to see your house as plainly but inviting as possible, so their creative minds can see what it could look like them to them. 
  4. Clean the place from top to bottom. I mean scrub the radiators down, dust those cobwebs off the corners of the rooms, polish the surfaces and again, making sure to focus more on the places that are in direct natural light. Make the house smell fresh and clean. No need to do this for every viewing, but make sure you keep on top of it whilst in the selling period. 
  5. Tidy away the odds and sods. If your house is anything like mine, I have shoes everywhere in the hallway, letters all over the kitchen worktops. Try to keep this tidy whilst you have viewings. You want people to fill those worktops and hallways with their own belongings, not yours. 
  6. Grab a mould cleaner, silicone and white grout to give your bathroom a spruce up. Clean away the mould, if there is some of course, replace the silicone around the bath edges and re-grout the tiles in the shower. It will make it look so much cleaner and appealing. 
  7. About 15 minutes before the viewing appointment, use my handy tip with a steam cleaner and make the house smell nice and fresh with a little Zoflora fragrance. 
  8. If you want to get rid of furniture when you move house, then why wait? Chances are if you get rid of the old furniture and unwanted items now it will make the rooms look bigger to the potential buyers. Make sure bedrooms have a bed in and the lounge has a sofa in though – to give it perspective. (Doesn’t mean you need big beds and sofas though does it!). We donated a lot of furniture the last time we moved to charity as we just didn’t have the room in our new house. 
  9. Get those carpets cleaned, professionally. Or you could hire a carpet cleaner from Homebase (for example) and really clean those carpets. We have pets, so we would do this with any property that we are moving out of. It makes the carpets look brand new and removes any pet odours that may be lingering in the house. 
  10. Finally, make sure that the back garden is tidy, same rules apply that we used for the front garden. Make sure it looks as big as it can look. What I mean by that is put things away, if you can, so that the lawn looks its maximum size. Paddling pools, family picnic benches and that kind of thing  can really make the garden look smaller. 

I hope these little tips help you on your way to selling your property, or renting it out. If you have any other tips I would love to hear them, I am always eager to find out more and exciting things to do in my house. 

The Monopoly houses image by Shutterstock. 

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