Property presentation – will help achieve the best price when selling a property.

Across Melbourne and Australia for that matter almost every Saturday and Sunday, thousands of prospective property buyers drive past properties listed for sale without going in. From a property presentation perspective they do not like what they see on the outside and make a snap decision that the property is not for them. It may have been ideal but they will never know, and if it is your property, you have just lost an opportunity.

Worse still, many of those who do inspect are put off by aspects of the internal presentation, or fail to see past the clutter. Again you have missed out on a potential sale. Fortunately these problems are completely avoidable with property presentation.

With property presentation you have to do a number of things. The main one is to decide how to present your property. It’s a truism in real estate that you only have one chance to make a first impression. You can’t leave any stone left unturned. However many property sellers ignore this to their own detriment. All properties need to be presented as well as possible. Don’t let anyone, even a real estate agent tell you otherwise. Buyers do not overlook peeling paint. They rarely say “I’m going to buy this place and spend lots of my money doing it up” unless it requires a full renovation. If they do it’s because they will ultimately be paying you substantially less than what your property could fetch.

Simple things that you need to identify with property presentation include: Painting. Gardening. Cleaning and most importantly decluttering. You have to place yourself in your buyers shoes and be objective. Another option is to get your family & friends honest opinions on how your property is currently presented. There is also often a need for professional property staging.

Aside from property presentation, when preparing a property for sale you should have a contract of sale prepared before showing any prospective purchaser. In Victoria disclosure of information is contained in a Section 32 Vendor’s Statement and is incorporated within the contract. The legal requirement is for this to be signed by the vendor however many real estate agents will ask the buyer to sign it too in order to prove it was included before the exchange. Property solicitors and conveyancers can normally prepare this documentation within a week. As the seller you get to set your terms such as inclusions and time until completion, subject of course to the law. Having a contract of sale ready also helps with expediting a sale once a buyer is found. Property solicitors and conveyancers should be able to tell you up front what they are going to charge you to put together a contract of sale for your property. This means fees and disbursements which is extra expenses ranging from photocopying to paying for documents attached to the contract. Property solicitors and conveyancers can charge anywhere between $500 to $1000 for their services which generally includes settlement.

On another important matter with property presentation you need to realistically research and access the price of your property. This is tricky because most people struggle with objectively especially when it involves their property. They either fail to identify the weaknesses of their own property. Or are too inclined to see and magnify its faults. To start with, you require data on what recently sold, preferably during the last year to compare with your own property. Such sales are known as ‘comparable sales’ and represent the way both valuers and real estate agents access the likely selling price of any property. Of course no two properties are the same and market sentiment is always changing. Precision is difficult but it is possible to gain an approximate idea of your property’s value using this method. It’s also important not to make assessments based only on the best sale. For example an auction may have been highly successful because two buyers were fighting it out to obtain that particular property. It does not mean this scenario will happen again. At this point, you really want to a realistic price.

Vendor Marketing – Melbourne’s most qualified vendor advocates, specialises in both property marketing and real estate agent selection for property sellers within Melbourne, therefore we are able to assist you with property presentation.