Easy Steps To Prep Your Home For Sale

EASY STEPS TO GET YOUR HOUSE READY FOR SALE

Preparing your house for sale is a tricky one. You don’t want to spend too much but you do want to ensure you get the best price possible. Also you if you’re like most people you have to live in your house whilst its for sale. So everytime there is a viewing your trying to get the place looking well, not an easy task if you have young children or pets etc.

We’ve had a chat in the office here to see what each of us felt was the best way to prepare for that sale/viewing;

DE-CLUTTER; De-cluttering your house is really important as the more clutter you have the smaller your house will feel. We recommend getting a small skip and going room by room to de-clutter. Be ruthless, those 20 pairs of football boots under the stairs or all those old coats that have sentimental value are someone else’s junk or rubbish. Sam Ashdown from Home-truths.co.uk recommends the 1 Year Rule- If you havent used it in the last year then bin it!

CLEAR BACK: Clear back counters. Kitchen counters should be cleared right back, try and find room in the kitchen cupboards for all of the ingredients eg Olive oil etc that normally live on the counters. You should really only have the kettle and toaster out on display. Window sills should be clear too so that viewers can see into your garden clearly.

TO PAINT OR NOT TO PAINT: Will we paint or not is a regular question people ask. Our recommendation is that if you can paint without too much cost then thats always good to give a nice clean/fresh impression. If walls are smudged or marked then they should be painted. Remember, if your house needs say €1000 worth of painting a buyer may be put off completely or look for a discount. When buyers look for discounts they usually look for €5000 to make it really worth their while to go to the trouble of painting their new home themselves.

THE GARDEN: If your green fingered then you’ll have no problem in this area. However we would recommend that hedges are trimmed and all shrubs etc are trimmed if you can. Likewise, if you can cut the grass then great. Sometimes we come across back gardens that are badly damaged because Fido the family pet lives there. A cheap alternative is to spread some bark mulch in the affected areas.

FINALLY- CHECK THE GUTTERS AND FACIAS. Its worth checking your gutters and facias to see if they are clean or to see if any weeds are growing out from them. Ive had buyers look to have gutters cleaned before signing contracts if they can see that they are not in good order.

Dont Be Stuck! We have our own list of handymen, painters, gardeners, tilers and so on that we are happy to recommend to you. Just give us a call or email:)

We can advise you on exactly what works you should or should not carry out to prepare your home for sale. Remember, you want to ensure you get the maximum price for the minimum spend.Just email me with any questions you may have and I will be delighted to advise.

Finbarr Malone –
Director -Senior Property Consultant at Byrne Malone

P.S.Why not check out our testimonials and see what others think at www.ByrneMalone.ie …

About The AuthorFinbarr Malone is Co-Owner of Byrne Malone Estate Agents. He is married with 3 boys and like most people in this position spends the weekends chauffeuring them around to matches and so on:)

Byrne Malone Are an estate agency with an office in Village Square Tallaght. We specialise in securing the highest price achievable for your property whilst maintaining a realistic timescale. We have agents to cover all of Dublin, North & South as well as Kildare & Carlow