Don’t ruin your house viewing!

Welcome to our blog. Over the coming weeks and months, using our experience as estate agents working all over Bournemouth, Southampton and Portsmouth, we will be offering our best tips for house sellers and important property news related posts. Our first entry focuses on the difficult yet crucial process of house viewings.

Whether you are carrying out a property viewing yourself, or just preparing your home for a viewing to be undertaken by an estate agent, there are plenty of ways to get it right and plenty more ways to get it wrong. For many prospective buyers the viewing is the clincher, and visualising living in a property through first hand experience is most certainly more likely to encourage someone to part with their cash.

The most obvious thing to take care of before a viewing is clutter and mess. A property that is swamped in clutter can lose its appeal, and it can be difficult for prospective buyers to envisage its potential. Making the property tidy and clear will make all the difference, although we wouldn’t advise leaving it completely bare – it is a fine line, but showcasing the slightly lived-in feel can be beneficial.

Maximising light can rejuvenate a property for a viewing (not to mention making your last few weeks living there more pleasant). Keep the blinds up and open all the curtains; in our opinion, natural light shows a property in its best light. Make sure all lamps and wall lights have working light bulbs for visitors to test – these minimal touches can make all the difference.

Our last piece of advice is this: don’t let yourself get in the way of the property viewing. Nostalgia and anecdotes, although endearing, are likely to be counter-productive as far as prospective buyers are concerned. It is surprising how many vendors let emotion colour their discussions with prospective buyers. You may well be trying to sell the property, but your love for the place will quite often shine through during a viewing and it is important to get the balance right – don’t alienate the visitors making them think they will be doing you a disservice in buying the property.

So, you've done the hard part by finding people interested in your property who are happy to visit, hopefully our advice will help this go smoothly and eventually enable you to increase the property value of your home. If you are thinking about selling and would like to know how much your property could be worth, you can do so using our instant online valuation tool. For additional advice on selling, please get in touch on: 0844 809 9931.