To think some little things make a house look expensive?

[Stressmode]

Selling my house and trying to make it look like normal people live there! My husband disagrees and says people will only be looking at bricks and mortar. However I recon there are certain things that help people a feel for a place and show it off well. Not just because I am selling my house but because I want to get some nice stuff for my next place. I am autistic so kind of struggle with this stuff.

What little things make a house feel elevated (classy, expensive, nice… not sure which) ?

Not got much budget, but trying to work out which things help with interiors.

I nearly bought a house for ifs lovely wooden shutters! Been coveting them ever since.

Clean, uncluttered, plain bedding, tots away,

This is what I was looking for. I knew the house would work from me from the floor plan, or I wouldn't bother viewing. I knew the area, I had a small search area. I just needed a feel for the house, especially if someone had loved it, or neglected it. I just didn't want to see neglect.

Simple things do add to that loved feeling though. Alive house plants. Leaves cleared from outside. Smelling aired and clean. Even if decir is tired, I don't care. I will redo that anyway. I don't want fresh paint, or big efforts. Just clean and cared for. Even if that care involves paint wiped off in patches where mucky wee hands have been. I definitely see past that.

Only my experience, but every time we decluttered, removed personal photos, baked bread and put out flowers, we had an offer. If we didn't bother with the flowers and left things tidy but not minimalist, we didn't.

(A lot of the early offers were too a bit too low to proceed though so perhaps this isn't helpful!)

we hired a storage unit to take out some of the mountains of geeky crap my H had all over the house but also ended up taking excess cook books, tupperware, etc, etc.

most folk i know send me houses they're interested in cause i can read a floor plan and spot issues straight away - and you can't cover those kind of issues. but if your house is fundamentally what someone is looking for then you can make a difference to their enthusiasm with how you make it look. i realised when our house went on rightmove how colourful it was compared to the average house - lots of white/cream but we had a (pale) green room and a (pale) blue room and a peachy coloured dining kitchen when a LOT of other houses like ours were seas of beige or grey. it still sold but if we'd struggled that would probably have been the key - to just get it repainted slightly more neutrally.

although lots of posters are being snotty about things like furniture it can make a difference - i've never actually been sucked into buying something because of how it's been staged but there's been a couple of times where the aspirational dream (like solid oak doors, granite worktops, fancy lighting) has come close to neutralising a fundamental issue like a north facing garden! some people are making an investment but many, many people are buying a home and planning their future and want to be able to easily imagine that.

Well seemingly half of the commentors are offended at the suggestion that staging could influence them, but I think it's pretty obvious that presenting your house really well can influence buyers.

When we sold our house last year, I intentionally sold the viewers a lifestyle, not a house. It was a bright and modern house anyway, in good nick, but I cleaned like a maniac, ruthlessly decluttered, dressed rooms so that their purpose/ potential was clear (e.g. dressed a blowup mattress as a full bed in a previously unused storage room). Our walk in wardrobe was decluttered and arranged "just so" with tidy clothes and shoes so that it looked like a dream wardrobe and not the overflowing mess that it normally was. There was molton brown handwash/ nice soap and fluffy towels at every sink. Fruit bowl full. A new houseplant where some greenery was needed. And I put those bake at home breadrolls timed to be cooked right before viewings started, so the kitchen smelled like freshly baked bread.

Our house sold within 10 days, for over 100k over asking. Say what you want, but I think selling the dream works...

With my mother’s probate house we took a third of the furniture out of each room. We put eBay and Vinted White Company bed linen with bright quilts folded on the bed ends and White Company toiletries and towels in the bathrooms. There is always a flowering plant as you come in and white silk hydrangeas and orchids. The only ornaments and pictures are very neutral and as non-elderly looking as I can manage.

All cliches and done to death but they work because the house looks light and bright. People comment on the presentation being good.

Clean, no clutter. A few expensive things like a posh handwash, nice towels.
We sold a house first viewers with nice staging.

Lots of good points made already, but to address your specific question, I would say things like
mirrors - they create more light and a subtle illusion of space.
fresh flowers and plants - something living in each room
Matching, clean, new bed linen.
cushions, throws (again clean, fresh, new) and small touches of a signature colour throughout a room.
Rugs - don’t over do it, but a little softness underfoot helps.

We always viewed older properties and seeing the family through the years made me think of our family evolving in that space. It makes places feel homely.

Some top tips I received were:

jetwash your driveway/ patio - and enjoy it looking lovely until it sells!
get gutters / facias cleaned
turn on any lights in darker spaces - you can get battery led lights to stick under top kitchen units etc, can bring them to your new home too!
If you have only on street parking and have two cars, move both of them away to create as much easy parking as possible
open all windows up every day -all houses have a smell that you become immune to

I wouldn't be spending money on stuff that you don't really want, but if you do end up getting cheap throws etc they can be used to protect furniture when moving.

Smell is so important so I’d go for some Jo Malone or White Company diffusers. Same fragrance throughout.

Plenty of plants.

It’s not just bricks and mortar. Showing the type of lifestyle can really help sell fast.

It was probably the location and price. I'll be honest, I've never noticed people's handwash and couldn't identify if it was "posh" or not.

Not Jo Malone, they always smell a bit of sage, which I don't like.

For me it's kerb appeal - clean, tidy, well maintained, clean doormat and a few nice pots with seasonal shrubs or flowers. Easy to take with you too.

Maybe I'm in a minority, but clinically bare and no sign of people comfortably living in a space turns me off it. But then again, maybe I'm not as very few properties on Escape to the Country or Location, Location, Location ever look decluttered to within in an inch ...

Lot of disingenuous replies here. Most people aren't buying a renovation project, they are buying a home. Of course people are influenced by the marketing of the property and whether it appeals to them as a target customer. They can work out the size, location, facilities by reading the listing but it's the staging and details that close the deal whether you're conscious of these or not.

It's not the baked bread/fragrance/linens themselves, it's the fact that the sellers show that they care about the property. Somebody who's made an effort to present a clean and tidy home in its best light is probably (not always) someone who makes the effort to upgrade the boiler, clean the drains, prevent mould and damp etc.

There are people who are absolutely convinced that advertising and marketing definitely don't work on them in spite of huge evidence and data to the contrary.

We’ve been viewing properties lately and some smell like no one ever gives it a real clean. That smell, plus bathrooms that look sad with dirty grouting and bad layouts put me off even though I know those things are fixable.

Aside from smell, uncluttered rooms and organised looking storage and healthy plants and a well-cared for garden are all attractive features.

Agreed, if they can’t present the house in a clean and tidy way then I doubt very much they do general maintenance to the property, if they live in a shit hole I doubt they worry about servicing boilers or clearing gutters.

Ahhh the famous mumsnet stunt pineapple, works like a charm, stunt tea towels help as well.

I think your husband's wrong - lots of people might think they're just looking at bricks and mortar, but in reality they are swayed by good decor and hints of the good lives they might lead there (e g. fresh flowers, smell of good coffee, nice bed linen, everywhere clean and tidy, sparkling windows...)

We got our house significantly under the asking price because it was so messy & unloved. Nobody had offered on it as it needed so much doing.
Fortunately we could see through the mouldy bathroom & broken kitchen floor tiles and went purely on location & square footage.
Bargain

That’s meaningless without any context about the area and the market conditions, though. We sold a house in ten days for £150 k more than we’d paid for it three years earlier without doing any significant work, and without ‘staging’, or doing more than giving it a good clean and retouching worn paint, but that was because it was an ‘easy’ house in a sought-after village in a buoyant market. I would only bother ‘staging’ if it’s a difficult house, in an unappealing location, and/or the market is bad.

Week painted with ash the painting in his condition without dents and chips regardless of whether I like the color scheme)! Good lighting. Some high level, please no hideous paper shade that cost about 99p and should have remained in a l970d comune 😉 Audi some good looking table lamps sound the room, oversized works incredible well. Nice mirrors, again buffet rather than small. Leave the lights on. It looks bigger than it is. It looks fresher and brighter than it is. It limooks far more appealing. Obviously no I'm unnecessary furniture- organised minimalism all over but unit cc stuff ç

I was going to suggest show homes, too. Did you know the show house always sells, and half the purchasers buy the stuff the developers put in it? This is solid evidence that [a] buyers prefer a home that looks ready-made, while also being unfeasibly clean & tidy, and [b] many can't imagine different furnishings in a space, so they just buy the ones they looked at.

So, basically, made it look sparkling clean and as un-lived-in as possible. Visible accessories should be sparse, new-looking and relevant - bottles in the bathroom, kettle in the kitchen - with just a few pictures & mirrors, all generic in style, and a couple of healthy plants.

Another model would be good hotels: they always look like nobody lives there but you'd be comfortable from the moment you walk in.