Most homes that sit on the market are not overpriced by much. They are underprepared by a lot. These eleven steps are ordered by return, not by effort.
Start with the photographs, not the paint
Buyers decide whether to book a viewing in about four seconds of scrolling. Before anything else, look at the last set of photographs taken of your house and ask whether a stranger would stop on them. If the answer is no, the fix is usually light and clutter rather than renovation.
We book photography for the two hours either side of the sun crossing the back of the house. On a west-facing garden that means late afternoon; on an east-facing one, before ten.
Fix the three things every survey finds
Damp at the skirting, a slow-draining gutter, and window seals that have blown. None of them is expensive. All three appear in the report that buyers use to renegotiate, usually at ten times what the repair would have cost.
Price against sold, not listed
Your neighbour’s asking price is an opinion. The sale three streets over that completed last month is a fact. We build every pricing memo from completed sales in the previous ninety days, and we show you the ones that argue for a lower number as well as the ones that flatter it.
If a house is priced correctly in this market it draws its strongest offers in the first eleven days. After three weeks, buyers start asking what is wrong with it.
Be ready for the viewing you did not plan
Half of our accepted offers come from a viewing booked with less than a day’s notice. Keep the house in a state where you can say yes to that call.
