If you’re thinking about selling your house, does the idea of viewings put you off? Or if your home is currently for sale, do you dread viewings, unsure how exactly to prepare your home so it looks its best?
Don’t worry! We have three very simple tips to help you prepare for your next (or first) viewing, so that you feel prepared and ready to show your home to viewers:
1. Plan your viewing! In your viewing, whether your agent is doing the viewing for you (they should be) or you’re doing the viewing yourself, make sure your prospective buyers see your very best room first – and quickly. This can have a really strong and positive impact on how they see your home. They then start the viewing with a good feeling, on a high note, in those first crucial minutes. In fact, some studies report that a buyer will make a decision on a house in just eight seconds! So you have a very short time in which to ensure your home makes the right impression on them. So if at the eight second mark, they are in a smelly porch filled with wellies, you may not get the offer you’re hoping for!
By the same token, at the end of the viewing, they really need to be in the second best room in your house, so they leave with a good feeling about your home too. It’s kind of a ‘good feeling sandwich’. First impressions create impact; last impressions create memories.
2. Avoid the ‘garden close’ – when you are showing viewers around your home, where does the viewing come to a natural close? After you’ve shown them round the house, do you then take them into the garden? The problem is with doing this, is that as they are already in their garden, possibly in sight of their car, it’s very easy to say goodbye and for them to simply go at that point. Instead, you really want your lovely buyers to have another look around the house alone, to give them chance to talk to one another in private, and ask their partner, “what do you think?”.
The answer, is to plan the viewing in advance. When you’ve shown them the house, take them out into the garden, but come back in the same door you went out of. If this is a patio door, you may find you need to ask them to take their shoes off, or leave slip covers by the door, so they don’t trail mud inside on a wet day. Then go back into the best room downstairs – often the kitchen or living room – and say “why don’t you go and have a look around again by yourselves?” Very few people will refuse this offer, and you could add “I’ll be waiting here when you’re done but don’t hurry” so they know they can take their time, and that you won’t be following them round, so they are free to talk in private.
So, avoid the garden close, and you will have much more chance of your viewers having the time and space to fall in love with your home. Just as you once did.
3. Make it warm – half an hour before your viewing is scheduled, turn the heating on, and light any fires. You don’t want it to feel like a sauna, but if your viewers can take off their heavy coats, scarves and gloves as they enter your hallway, they’ll already feel at home, and very welcomed. If you’re out at work all day and your agent has a key, make sure they a) know how to operate your heating and b) they arrive half an hour beforehand to make sure it’s on. Check with a friend for any cold spots, and do your best to mitigate them, by leaving doors open and adding perhaps an extra heater. Remember that warmth is equated with a welcoming, friendly home, and therefore a warm home is much more likely to entice an offer from an emotional buyer, than a cold one.
If you’d like to know more about how to prepare for viewings on your home, just let us know. We’re dying to hear from you!
If you would like to watch a super-quick video on this topic, click here
Sam and Phil
