Moving to a new house is one of the most stressful things you can do in your life. But while you are busy thinking about what you can afford and which locations have good schools, you might have forgotten the other half of the challenge: you have to sell your current house too!
The good news is that you can give yourself a long run up to selling your home. As soon as the idea of selling even crosses your mind, you should start making the necessary changes to get your house ready. The more time you have to prepare, the better your chances of selling quickly are. With that, here are some design tips to help your home sell faster.
Make the Most of Features
Showing off the best features is all about working out ways to draw the eye. On the other hand, if you are starting to worry about how you will sell an ugly house, you can stop panicking – there are ways to detract from less beautiful features too!
To show off an exterior feature, you should try to make it as eye-catching as possible. In many cases, a well-angled light works wonders but you might also think about the colors you use. For example, painting the exterior of your house can make it stand out from the surrounding scenery.
There are all kinds of ways to hide a multitude of sins at home from using trees to detract from strangely shaped houses to simply painting over outdated looks. However, don’t focus too heavily on strange features you can’t do anything about. The chances are that someone out there will love the building for what it is – or at least see the potential!
Image Credit: Unsplash
Neutralize Your Colors
While your taste in bright colors might be fabulous, most buyers are looking for a home they can move into without fuss. And 9 times out of 10, that means a neutral home they can add their personality to later on. For all that white might be boring, it is the best way to show off the size of a room as a blank canvas. One of the best design tips to sell your house faster is to use neutrals.
Though neutrals might fill your heart with dread at the prospect of magnolia walls throughout, 2019 is the year that neutrals are really having a moment. After several years of pale greys being in the mode, now softer creams, whites and even charcoal are entering the mix for much bolder schemes. This means that even though your scheme is neutral, you can still inject some personality to make the room more personal and less clinical.
Put Your Junk Into Storage
Moving house is the perfect time to sort through your stuff and chuck out the things you don’t need. This might feel like a ridiculous thing to be doing right now but actually, the sooner you start sorting, the easier the run-up to moving day will be. In fact, if you can organize one room per week before your house viewings, you will have a much more manageable load.
When you are sorting through your things, you should also consider putting some items into storage. One of the main reasons that families move house is that they require more space. The knock-on is that your current house can appear quite cramped with all your stuff crammed in. By putting some things into storage, you can show off how big your house really is and appeal to younger buyers.
You should also consider putting some of your more personal items into storage. This will ensure that they won’t get accidentally damaged when people are going around your house but will also give viewers a better chance of imaging themselves living in this property.
Image by Solomon Rodgers from Pixabay
Let There Be Light
Lighting is one of the most important aspects of interior design and there is nothing worse than going into a house and not being able to see a thing! Though you may not be able to make your windows bigger or the sun shine brighter, you can use a few simple tricks to illuminate your home.
Of all the rules there are about showing your house to potential buyers, making sure that the lighting is more than adequate has to be at the top of your list. Something as simple as opening the curtains and turning all the light on can make a huge difference to the feel of your home.
If you are still worried that your home is too dark, you can use simple spots behind key pieces of furniture to light up the walls behind. This is a great trick and once you’ve seen it, you’ll probably want to put it to use in your new house too!
Lighting can also affect the sensation of temperature in your home. Harsh bright white lights are great in the bathroom and kitchen where you want to be able to see in detail but using warm white bulbs in bedrooms and living areas will be much more relaxing.
Think Like a Buyer
We all get used to our own spaces and it feels strange to view our homes from a more detached perspective. However, if you want to work out where you need to spend your energy and which areas of your house could let you down, this is essential.
As you go around other people’s homes, consider what you are looking for but also make a note of the things that put you off. There is nothing like a good snoop in someone else’s house to learn what’s not okay on a viewing. Clothes on the floor, dishes in the sink and a strange smell are all going to put you off in someone else’s home so, make sure these things are sorted out in yours!
The more you see your competition, the clearer it will be what you need to do to your own house to persuade a buyer to bite. Working through this list is a good place to start but seeing what other houses in your area are like is a good method for seeing where the bar has been set.
Using these design tricks to sell your home will help you gain more interested buyers and make your home sell faster. Remember, when you put your home up for sale it’s no longer yours. Make your home appealing to others and you will sell fast.