What crafty tricks have you done to sell your house? (which are legal)

[Reallytired]

Our house is for sale and we have a very small living room but beautiful bedrooms and a nice kitchen. My baby woke up for a breastfeed and chose to feed her in our living room to discourage buyers from spending too long looking at the living room.

We are also keeping our dirty cloth nappies at the bottom of our garden.

[Pannacotta]

We hid away as much stuff as possible when selling both times to make the houses look bigger.

Also cleaned obsessively which I dont usually do!

Other than that nothing bad...

[Reallytired]

We accidently over heard a conservation of some buyers with the baby monitor .

It was a complete accident! honest

[TrillianAstrahasaJOB]

Were they saying nice things?

[Littlefish]

We overheard a conversation on the baby monitor too, Really tired! Luckily, they were saying how nice it all was.

We did a big de-clutter.

We hid the laundry basket and ironing basket in my car, and moved a chest of drawers over to the neighbours every time we had viewers.

I also made sure that all the surfaces in the kitchen were clear so it looked really spacious.

I spent a fortune on fresh flowers and had flowers in the: hall, sitting room, dining room, down stairs loo, spare bed room and our room.

Luckily, we got a buyer within the first week so we could stop shifting stuff around!

[Mammina]

declutter as much as you possibly can and clean the windows

[shootfromthehip]

Clean windows a must. Make sure the garden looks wonderful. Make the place smell brilliant too- I actually bought one of those Colonial Candles to make the place smell good enough to eat. It worked! First thing the buyer commented on

[Mintyy]

Keep any pet food dishes out of sight.

[Fizzylemonade]

Hid our nomal bath towels/hand towels in basket under the bed (hidden with valance) and put out pristine white towels, ditto for shower gel etc and always put on a full toilet roll.

Colour coded shirts in the wardrobe and moved the shirts to the other end of the wardrobe as the sleeves got caught in the bi-fold door.

Don't ever hide stuff in the oven (I use it as a gauge of how clean someone keeps a house) I opened one to find dirty pots and pans stashed in it, cue very red faced owner

Had large rattan baskets in lounge to chuck all manner of crap into before viewings

[Pannacotta]

Forgot we also hid pet bowls and I changed the hand and bath towels all the time.
I bought orchids instead of fresh flowers, they last longer and look very posh!

I also made the garden (front and back) look smart and well kept (set out table, chairs, parasol and BBQ) and put pretty seasonal flowers in pots, tidied away the bins etc.

We sold both times really quickly at or above asking price - with our first house we had two bidding wars (we had to take it off market and sell later).

SO I do think its worth making a real effort.

[nowwearefour]

we closed every single window dead tight to drown out road noise (which isnt bad but people perceive that it might be as we are a corner plot). seemed to work !

[MaybeAfterBreakfast]

Put lots of stuff into storage or the attic.

Expensive flowers with 'wow' factor everywhere

Kept the windows shut (to hide the fact that one sash window was broken)

Arranged all viewings for daytime when people were at work and parking was much easier (but outside of school times when parking was impossible - school at end of road) and noisy neighbours were at work too.

Hid all traces of dogs (food, beds, general clutter) in our car boot, and took dogs for walk during viewings

Parked our car away from the house (only had on street parking) to free up parking space near the house

Poncey recipe open on cookery book stand, and poncey ingredients on open shelves in kitchen.

[whereeverIlaymyhat]

Do people really open ovens on house viewings I'm sorry i'd be having a stern word about the oven not being part of the house ales so get your frickin hands off it.

[Reallytired]

I think its unbelivably rude to open an oven. Its bad enough when a buyer decided to open my son's clothes/ toys cupboard.

We also had a buyer deciding to grill my seven year old on on why we were moving and what the problems were with our house. Thankfully my son gave an excellent answer. Our garden has no tree and he wants a tree house.

[Hormonesnomore]

De-clutter & tidy everywhere.

Tidy away the children. Hide in the oven perhaps? - if the prospective buyers are polite, they won't look in there.

[NorbertDentressangle]

Littlefish -I can't believe you moved an entire chest of drawers to the neighbours every time you had viewings

The other people in the street must have wondered what on earth was going on

[ihavenewsockson]

get some banana bread baking- pref. in the bread machine so the smell lingers.

or cinnamon sticks in the oven and fresh coffee on the hob.

[DebiNewberry]

Left the house every single time we have a viewing. Massive declutter. Took down most of the photos. Painted everything white. Spotlessly clean.

[drowninginclutter]

Moved practically all the furniture to my parents for the duration (fortunately had a buyer at the first viewing)!

[acebaby]

put a load of stuff in the car, put loads more stuff in our bed, put away all toys, redecorated and cleaned so much you could see yourself in the kitchen worksurface.

I wore a poncho during viewings in a (vain) attempt to disguise the fact that I was 38 weeks pregnant, and therefore desperate to sell before having another child in our tiny 2 bedroom house.

We also put the house on the market at 5k less than any similar sized houses in the area.

[acebaby]

another thing - we agreed to move into rented to attract a first time buyer