Best tips for boosting property value before selling your home.

When it comes to property value you may have heard the expression ‘get it looking like a million dollars’ pretty often as a throw away, but when selling your home you can literally make it real.

There are a raft of ways to prepare a home before selling to increase property value and maximise its selling price. Experienced home sellers know all about these and how critical it is for boosting property value. The changes you make to improve the property value can be small scale, or even large scale, but the important thing is they must be the right changes. Changes that help a buyer to simply want the house.

Here’s a list of tips on where you can improve things. Get this right and you will increase property value and maximise your sale price in the process.

Property Value Tip # 1 – First impressions are very important

Buyers sometimes say “I knew it was right from the moment I saw it”. And that’s without even stepping inside. Home buyers make their first judgement from a car as they pull up. So the home has to look great from street level.

Property Value Tip # 2 – The front of your home must look great

You can’t have an untidy garden. People assume if the garden is poorly kept then maintenance within the home will be substandard too. For you, your familiar front garden may look friendly. But it might just look tired to a new buyer. Lose scrappy shrubs or untidy edges. Some simple pressure cleaning of cement or tiles, and replanting, improves a tired garden’s street appeal.

Property Value Tip # 3 – Fix the nature strip

A scrappy nature strip is another no-no. Make sure the lawn is healthy and neatly clipped. Weeds gone. Mow the neighbors lawns too if necessary during this critical time because it uplifts your whole section of the street. The best homes with high property value will nearly always have a perfect plantation strip.

Property Value Tip # 4 – Is the front door welcoming?

Walking to your front door, is everything perfect? No cracked or flaky paint, rust, or stains? Exterior walls can be pressure cleaned. Roof tiles also. Fresh paint is essential for a premium look and it suggests the inside will be just as stylish. Freshness and a ‘new start’ is an important part of a home buyers big emotional expectation. A sparkling front gets that experience off to the right start.

Property Value Tip # 5 – Sparkling clean inside

Make a start inside by getting professional cleaners in. Or do it yourself. Cleaning interior walls with sugar soap refreshes. You may even find that a coat of paint isn’t required. Carpet steam cleaning will have those looking better. Window frames inside and out quickly collect dust and grime and must be cleaned.

Property Value Tip # 6 – Minimalise everything inside

You don’t have to spend anything to get one of the most important things right. Decluttering is the key word here and it’s central for home sale preparation. You must get rid of the miscellaneous stuff. Being blunt, prospective buyers can’t relate to your personal mementos, holiday photographs, or paintings by your children. Frankly, it just looks like opportunity shop clutter to them.

Decluttering also applies on an emotional level too. A potential buyer has their own life and will be projecting that into the home as they inspect. They’ll respond best to a clean slate. Enhancing feelings of a fresh beginning for a buyer is good.

The simple goal is to make your rooms look like showrooms in a show home. Because this is showtime. Time to maximise your property value.

Property Value Tip # 7 – Keep hallways clear

Indoor/outdoor easy flow is an important element in new home design. Don’t fill hallways or through spaces with unnecessary chairs, or items that reduce easy movement. When you’re away travelling and you walk into a good hotel room you take a breath of relief and relax. Partly because it’s not cluttered.

Property Value Tip # 8 – Make your home spacious and brighter

You can make your home appear more spacious by making it lighter inside and more airy. Again, fresh paint in neutral tones helps. New carpet, perhaps in a lighter shade too. Also, polished floorboards help boost a room with shine, plus the warmth of wood. This can cost about a thousand dollars for an average room. And a week of inconvenience while its being done, but the results are stunning.

Could the light fittings be more stylish? Upgrading light fittings (downlights for example) in some of the rooms will add brightness and a contemporary feel.

A skylight will brighten a dark space or nook that’s farthest from a window, adding space and feel-good energy.

Property Value Tip # 9 – Can you target a specific type of buyer?

Your home might appeal strongly to one category of buyer. This can translate to greater property value and a higher selling price.

Think about the demographic you’ve targeted and adjust the presentation to match that. For example, for professionals, allow one space as a work or study area, with the right kind of furniture. Or conversely, turn an existing work area into a child’s bedroom instead.

Your home may be in a price range that means First Home Buyers will get stamp duty exemption, or other concessions, according to State Government policy.

There are specific ways to appeal to First Home Buyers. The photography must be good, and look good on small format. Younger people live on their phones and will see your home first on a screen 6cm wide. But make room for their bigger vision too. Decluttering is probably more important for this group than any other. Let them fill the home with their own long-term vision and personality.

Property Value Tip # 10 – People want eco-efficiency

Eco-effiency is important because is saves money and that helps with mortgage repayments. Features like solar panels, LED lighting, efficient appliances, effective insulation, or native garden plants that require less watering are all appealing selling points. Research has revealed that when two homes for sale are similar in all other respects, buyers will choose the home with Eco-efficient features.

Property Value Tip # 11 – Younger buyers don’t know much about renovating

Make sure there are no obvious features that have to be renovated. Younger buyers may have no renovating experience and see it as an expensive problem.

Property Value Tip # 12 – Add useful information to your advertising

Younger buyers are more likely to be unfamiliar with the neighborhood. Providing information in the advertising about the local amenities including transport, shopping, parks and recreation nearby will help fill gaps for them.

Property Value Tip # 13 – Making the Courtyard special

Out back, an ageing cement or paved courtyard can be improved with a wooden deck, which adds style to the garden and integrates indoor/outdoor living, adding to overall property value.

If there’s grass in the backyard, add new turf where needed to get that perfect lawn look. Plant some fresh flowers in the garden.

Showing off that outdoor living area so it’s alive and working is a good idea. You can leave a book on an outdoor table top. Or a jug and drinking glass. A pot or two with something in full flower adds life to the deck too.

Property Value Tip # 14 – Bedrooms boost property value

How much difference does an extra bedroom make?

Add a bedroom or two and the property value increases dramatically. An inner Melbourne 2 bedroom house may have a median around $825,000. But an inner Melbourne house with 4 bedrooms would have a median value closer to $1.6 million. The bedrooms add $387,500 each to the property value. If you can add a bedroom or two onto the rear of your house, in a simple but stylish way, you can produce a great return on the cost of renovation.

Property Value Tip # 15 – How Kitchens add to property value

Your Kitchen appeal can be the decider in a property sale. People expect stone bench tops. Appliances don’t have to be top of range, like Miele, but it’s critical that the ones you have are up to date.

Make sure your splash-back isn’t dated. A new splash-back in stainless steel for example, can really lift a kitchen.

Property Value Tip # 16 – Bring in the Property stylists or do it yourself?

A model for success in selling a property is employing a property stylist. They bring in paintings and furniture for the open-for-inspection period. It’s a very successful model.

But you can do it your own way if you have a good eye for style.

Also, on open inspection days, follow the example of stylish boutique shops and burn some scented candles, and have a couple of vases of fresh flowers. Oversized gilded mirrors standing on a floor looks good in a boutique and looks good in a home too.

Property Value Tip # 18 – Add property value with your Bathroom

Uncluttered Spartan space is big in bathrooms now. People like clean lines and hard surfaces, with naturalistic elements like stone, tile, wood.

Get rid of all those bits and pieces that clutter up bathrooms. The most you need on any surface is a soap dish and folded hand towel. Everything else should be out of sight in the cupboards.

Bathrooms have a tropical climate. You need to make sure every surface is free of damp or mould.

Property Value Final Tip – Check your home section by section

It’s all about looking at every section of your home and making sure each space is the most appealing it can be. Your property value can be ramped up in so many different ways. You want every aspect to gleam, so there’s nowhere in the home that drops the ball. Just as importantly, you want to make sure there are no hidden defects that will hurt the value of your property.

That way your property becomes the ‘perfect’ one people are hunting for.

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 can assist you with accessing your property value before selling.