Get your home photo- and visit-ready with these tips!
Your house or apartment is going on sale soon? Exciting! Your file at Albert is compiled and handled with care. This also means that the time has come to show your home at its best to potential buyers. Preparing your home for photographs and viewing requires extra attention. Because how do you make sure that your home catches the eye of a large audience and comes across well in photos? Read our tips below for preparing your house or apartment for viewing and attract as many viewers and buyers to your home as possible! Good luck!
Light-rich environment:
Potential buyers want a light-rich home. Therefore, white (or off-white) walls always do well. This makes the whole house look lighter and fresher. Does your home not have white walls, but you still want to make the house brighter? Then remove as many things as possible in front of the windows, such as pictures on a windowsill, large plants that block the light. Also open all window decorations as much as possible. Before the photo shoot or visiting day, give the windows a good cleaning, so everyone can see how beautifully the light falls into your home. In addition, make sure you have the right (mood) lighting throughout the house.
Neat and tidy:
Make sure your home is tidy and clean. If there is anything important when viewing a property, it is that the rooms are tidy and neat. It may be a very obvious tip, but of course we cannot leave this point unmentioned. Therefore, when preparing your home for viewing, walk through your home with a critical eye and put away all personal and unnecessary items. After that, do a major cleaning or invite your cleaning helper to visit for an extra hour/week. It's totally worth it!
Temperature:
Get the right temperature in your home. Buying a home is mostly about feeling. People literally want to “feel at home” when they step over the threshold of the home. A good way to make potential buyers feel good right away is to make sure the home is the right temperature. They may not actually notice this, but it makes them feel right at home. And that's what it's all about! So make your home nice and warm for a viewing in the winter and make sure there is adequate ventilation on a hot summer day.
Scented environment:
A fragrant home works wonders. Like the right temperature, smell is also a dealbreaker when it comes to selling your home. The most underappreciated cause that leaves a viewer with “no pleasant feeling” about a home is the smell. So if you are in the process of preparing your home for viewing, be sure to pay attention to this as well. Absolute no-go's: tobacco smell, animal smell, garbage can smell. Absolute go's: put fragrance sticks in the home. The smell of pastry or cleaning soap can also work blissfully.
Safety:
Put cords and cables out of sight. Once the viewings have started soon, you want people to be distracted as little as possible by details and little sloppiness, such as cables and cords. You also don't want them to trip over them! This is often an eyesore during a first visit to a property. No one has ever tried to watch TV or make a cup of coffee during a viewing, so enjoy pulling all the cords out of appliances. This makes the home a lot less cluttered and also provides added security.
Atmosphere:
A very easy way to make your home attractive to viewers is by putting flowers down. Just as everyone loves a bright home, a fresh bouquet of flowers in a beautiful vase always works. So make sure you give the flowers in the garden or balcony some extra love and put them in various places around the house. This will instantly give your rooms some color and a fresh look. Make sure you do this not only before viewings, but also before taking photos.
Personal items:
Get rid of personal items. No doubt you have wonderful children and very nice friends. But sorry, unfortunately no buyer is interested in that. So get rid of all your children's photos, souvenirs, personal cards and crafts. This will help a potential buyer imagine that he or she is living there themselves and will also work as an enlargement.
Pets:
Pets are hearty fun, but they're not going to help you sell your home. In fact, if you're in the process of getting your home ready for viewing, it's best to create the illusion that pets have never lived there. The smell of pets does not do well with potential buyers, and for some people, one cat hair is enough to run out of the house with a negative feeling. So temporarily house your pets in a spare room and get rid of all the pet stuff, such as a dog basket, feeders and scratching posts.
Repairs:
Make minor repairs. A broken window, a malfunctioning door handle, broken lights or a loose baseboard. This seemingly “minor” overdue maintenance makes the house seem poorly maintained. Therefore, you would do well to make minor repairs before viewers arrive and photos are taken. Do things in the house squeak or hinges go stiff? Lube oil is your greatest friend.