If you’re looking for a way to sell your home in a short amount of time, without investing the time or innovation a real estate broker did in the Netherlands when showing people around a home on a rollercoaster ride this article is here to help you create a good first impression.
See, the first impression your property creates is fundamental to forming the buyer’s gut instinct.
This gut instinct is a feeling that is formed in the first few seconds of the viewing experience. Similar to how when you meet someone new, you can’t help but subconsciously generate a first impression that then sets the scene, or at least perception, for the rest of your interactions.
It’s no secret that in life, first impressions are critical, but so many people forget this when selling their house – they might know the principle on an intellectual level but they neglect to put it into practice. Whilst it can be helpful to keep up with property news nothing will be more helpful in terms of selling your property than creating a good first impression that ‘wows’ your prospective buyers.
See, many property owners overlook the basics such as decluttering their space, making their interior decor neutral, and keeping on top of basic maintenance tasks such as painting fences, mowing lawns, and trimming hedges.
This article provides a number of practical tips to help you create the right first impression when selling your home, but before we get into these practical tips it’s important to consider one overarching piece of advice which is to not come across as being desperate.
We understand the power of first impressions when it comes to sales or dating, and we also understand how it can feel if we are interacting with someone that appears desperate – it has a very unattractive and repellent energy that is akin to a bad aroma in that’s something just doesn’t feel quite right.
Therefore, keep this in mind, as sometimes your enthusiasm to sell your house may reach the point of ‘over-keen’ and this could reek of desperation, which from a first impression perspective, is likely to put people off.
DECLUTTER
You want people to see your space in its most light, airy and breezy state. Nobody wants to buy a house that feels dark and dingy, with clutter everywhere… people want a space that feels like a blank canvas in which they can project their own personalities onto.
If the space is too cluttered it makes it harder for the potential buyer to picture the home as their own. Therefore, it’s imperative you declutter – even if that means you have one room full of boxes, it’s better to have one room like that than a whole house.
TAKE CARE OF THE BASICS
If someone were to arrive at a property with an overgrown lawn or hedges, it isn’t the end of the world, but subconsciously it suggests that the current owners don’t care enough to make an effort to take care of the basics… which begs the question, what else are they neglecting within the house.
If you’re struggling to sell your home then one of your first steps is to make sure that basic maintenance issues such as keeping the lawn trimmed are being taken care of.
MAKE IT NEUTRAL
Your favorite colour combination might be beautiful to you, but it’s best to keep things as neutral as possible, as the aim when trying to sell your house is for it to be a house, not your personal home. It should therefore be a blank canvas that prospective buyers can project their own personality onto; and for this reason, most property developers find the best way to do this is to decorate the walls and carpet with neutral colors.
KEEP IT CLEAN
It can be difficult when living in your home to keep it spotlessly clean, but this is imperative to making a good first impression; even if the prospective buyers are themselves very untidy and live in a dirty house when coming to view someone else’s property they are in ‘judgement mode’ and not in the sense of egotistically judging you as a person, but judging whether they could live in the space – and if the space is dirty, then the answer is usually going to be no.
Your job is to make your home as appealing as possible and for this reason keeping it clean and tidy is imperative. For instance, if someone comes into the bathroom you want them to buy into the feeling of if they buy your house it will always be that clean – so take care of the little things such as wiping the toothpaste splatters of the mirror and sink, in order to create an impression that they are buying into a clean and tidy home.
LITTLE TOUCHES
You can add little touches which can indeed make all the difference, but this has to be the final touch, as some people will invest in a bunch of vibrant and beautiful fragrant flowers whilst there is clutter everywhere. The little touches can make all the difference but they do not compensate for an untidy or dirty home that is cluttered with junk.
A lot of times people forget how important the olfactory sense is (smell and taste) but when viewing a property, many people consider the smell as a subtle indicator of whether they feel at home in a place. Therefore, burning a gentle aromatherapy candle or similar can be a great way to attend to this sense – but don’t overdo it, as there’s nothing worse than going to a property with air freshener plugins everywhere, as this can give off the impression that you’re trying to mask a bad smell.
In addition to smell, there are little touches such as lifestyle factors that can help shape a person’s first impression… for instance, if you have a magazine out on something controversial such as hunting or abortion there’s a chance this might upset prospective buyers depending on their stance; it’s therefore good to be as neutral as possible, and remember the golden rule which is that they are coming to view your property with a view to seeing if they could feel comfortable and at home there, themselves.
Categories: Tips And Advice Stuff
