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.

It's the feeling/atmosphere the house gives you

If you want it as a home not a doer-upper it needs to feel like a home, not a doss house and even if it's not entirely your taste

Who wants a doss house?
I'm never put off by items on the coffee table, the presence of a toaster, or hand wash.
I genuinely think you ought not to be swayed by what you're not buying. Clean and tidy? Fine.
Not my taste in soft furnishings? No problem.

The trouble is that everyone thinks they aren't affected by this stuff, but on a subconscious level most of us are. It's like adverts - people claim they aren't influenced but it wouldn't be a multi-billion pound industry if it were ineffective!

I walked into a house that had the oven on and a roast cooking. They obviously hadn't cleaned it in far, far too long and the smell of rancid meat fat put me off so much I just turned around and left. Yes, it could have been a great house. Yes, I could have factored a new oven into the cost of the house. However, it was just 'that awful smelling house' in my memory and I didn't want to be there.

Similarly, there was a house with a bunch of sweetpeas in a vase in the hall. My first thought was "how lovely" and I looked at the rest of the house with a much more well-disposed eye because it smelled so good as I entered. It was only afterwards, comparing it to a near identical house two streets over, that I realised why I'd felt that way.

Deep clean
Remove any weeds from front of the house and put lovely pots in the front so it's welcoming and bright/fresh.

Make the back garden appealing too like it's another room

Get the window cleaners - inside and out

Bleach tiles and floors so they're clean and fresh

Make it smell nice but not such that it seems you're covering smells, fresh flowers are always nice

Declutter!

Ridiculous...!

Very clean, all rooms relatively uncluttered (but not bare), no family photos or knick-knacks. Clean/new towels, tea towels and dishcloths (just for viewings), uncreased bedding or bedcover (just for viewings), flowers or plant in a pot if you feel like it (scented, one colour or toning). Bottles of handwash to make it easier to clean near sinks. Clean windows.
Last time we sold we listened to the agent and he said to move the furniture about to make the room look as large as possible and give a clear view of the lovely view from the window, it did look better.

I would never bother to redecorate unless the walls and paintwork were really grubby.

Clean, tidy, no clutter, nice smell.

I wouldn't bother with "objects" and would never be swayed by what others might think were interesting.

We tend to buy renovation projects so the frippery things that people add to dress a property don't have any effect on our wanting a property or not. However we do want it to be reasonably clean so that we can live in it whilst we plan the work - and often we also live in it whilst the work is being done. I wouldn't buy something with a disgustingly greasy kitchen or a smelly unusable bathroom, even if we planned to replace them quickly.
Last time we bought a probate sale. The agent later told me that the whole place had been a bit grubby so the owner's son had cleared it of unecessary furniture, cleaned it thoroughly, and painted over some dated beige wallpaper. It did make it easier for us to move in for the few months that we lived there before the renovation.

I actually think there is a point styling it. When we were looking at houses, out of date decor and cheap surface decoration put me off massively.

We bought a place that had been redesigned by a budding interior designer, and it was (and still is) fabulous. They had rethought the house so the rooms and layout were ideal.

In addition they had a little girl whose room - although modestly sized - and she had beautiful, understated but stylish items.

We probably paid a bit more as a result, but with two little children and two full time jobs, I don't regret that. We didn't have to do loads of work on it- although my husband did anyway to "make it his own".

I stripped my house right back years ago, all pictures/ artwork removed from walls, all walls painted white. We have wooden floors downstairs, no unnecessary furniture and very few 'bits' on shelves. I was amazed at the effect, I felt I could breathe easier and all the clutter had been oppressive

Clean fresh walls .. some nice large plants .. no clutter.. light open space.
That's what I'd look for.

Look at your paint choices - anything wild or really specific think about going neutral, if you have any of the dark Farrow and ball esque blues they can probably stay but anything else pick a nice warm neutral / off white - not a grey

I hate dark colours so they would put me off immediately. I do want well proportioned rooms with lots of natural light.

As minimal as possible. Remove furniture if needs be.

Tidy front garden. Brew coffee, air the house out before viewers arrive.

No clutter and a fresh light scent. If you got it in B&M, it's not making your house look classy or expensive.

As a former 'Property Presenter' I'm naturally going to agree with you. However the main thing is to make sure your house is spotless. One thing I used to always tell people was to make the beds properly (you'd be surprised how off-putting an unmade bed can be!).

No clutter

A busy and cluttered house gives the impression it's too small / not enough storage or space

My sisters friend got a woman in to “stage” the house for sale. I don’t know what the company is called, they live in the north west.

I know they put a lot of nice branded products around (Molton Brown hand wash for example) and said they were “selling a lifestyle”. The house was around the 650k mark which I guess would be right. They loaned furniture and things for photos I think too.

You need to have the rooms as they were intended. For example they had a dining room as a toy room that was just a chaotic mess with a huge animal cage in. The animal got moved and the toys were put into kids rooms etc. Keep it clean and tidy.

Different people will be looking to buy for different reasons. Best you can do is make it presentable, no bad smells or visible leaks.

Pictures hung on the walls in a perfectly proportioned way

A buyer who is looking to develop / flip won't care.

That aside, IMO a house needs to give the impression that the owner has cared for it, spent money on proper maintenance and isn't the type of person that lives with ongoing snags or problems.

So spotlessly clean and very neat, visible toiletries on the expensive side, soft furnishings mid-range at least, beds made very neatly, towels folded perfectly, all clothes away, no sign of dirty laundry, etc etc..

Put another way make it look like a rather uptight, fussy, intolerant, rigid, classy person runs the roost and most buyers will assume the house has been kept to a certain standard which is reassuring in a house seller!

I buyer looking to redevelop/flip will be looking for a low price for the size of house /location - so for those saying “I just look at square footage and pay low” - you are the buyers the OP doesn’t want! She wants the people who look at it and think they could put their current furniture in the house on the random Thursday they’ve agreed for sale, and feel they can go to work the following morning with no DIY /redecorating to do that weekend. And are prepared to pay a bit more for that lack of effort.

Light, clean, neutral. No clutter. Good luck!

Last time we sold, which admittedly was nearly 20 years ago now, in addition to the usual advice about ensuring the house was spotlessly clean and clutter free, and having touched up any scuffed paintwork, I had some high end toiletries (which we didn’t use) which I left out in the bathroom having put the half used day to day stuff in a cupboard, and if I knew anything about the viewers I would buy a relevant magazine and leave that (and only that) on the coffee table as a subliminal you belong here kind of thing (FT if they worked in the City, Private Eye for media types kind of thing).

it sounds a bit nuts but even in a sluggish market at the time we got multiple offers in the first week of going on the market and ended up selling for more than the asking price and for at least 15% more than the house next door had sold for the year before. So it definitely didn’t harm us, and cost peanuts to do.

If you have any whisper of mould or damp, get rid of it.

If you have curtains, good quality lined curtains in plain or neutral colours.

After that neutral everything where possible.