Moving house is stressful

[bobthebaby]

We have had an offer accepted on a house we want to live in. Now we have 30 days to sell our own house or the contract falls through (this is NZ, and things move quickly here). We are having an "open home" on Saturday, which is basically when the agent puts an ad in the paper and you go out for an hour having left your house more clean and tidy than it has ever been in its life and loads of people traipse through and hopefully like it enough to offer me heaps of money for it.

I have spent the last 2 weeks since we saw the house we are buying cleaning and tidying etc. but the more I do, the more I see. We have shipped heaps of stuff off to PIL's house to make house look more spacious. Tidied up all the toys, plumped the cushions - what have I missed?

What did you all do to make your house sell?

Fresh flowers, nice smells, new towels.

I don't know if you get "House Doctor" on TV over there, she is a woman who stages houses to make them more saleable. She advises decluttering, which it seems you have done, and also de-personalising the property. Take down any family photos, children's works of art etc, so that people can imagine their family in the house and not yours. She also says that people make up their mind within the first few seconds of a viewing so it is important that the house looks good from outside - tidy garden, welcoming plants, uncluttered entrance. Kitchens and bathrooms must be spotless.

If you have dogs or cats you need to keep them out of the way and de-oderise their areas. Also repair any minor faults eg a door handle hanging off as this indicates lack of care and if there are minor faults visible are there bigger faults elsewhere?

Good luck.

Just remember not to fill the cuborads up - you need to let people see there's loads of room for there stuff.

if you have got loads of stuff put some shelfing up and put some wicker baskets on them to hide bits - put then above eye level so people don't actuallty see in them but they look pretty (this workeded for we sold ours recently)

A pot of coffee smells brillantly. again new towels even if it's just the hand towel that's on show.

The hall way is the most important factor (or the entrance) make sure it bright and airy if u hang your coats there etc pack them away as this can makes things look smaller --

the key thing is no matter how big your house is the buyer always wants something bigger so you have to make it look bigger.

best of luck i know what a pain it is. we moved on the 20th december and it's fantastic when u finally move.

Get a friend along who you know will give you an honest opinion and see what she says. Very often you get so used to seeing things everyday that you stop noticing them or you notice little things that no one else actually sees at a first look.

Good luck !

A strong smell of coffee would make me flee a house at high speed...Hate the stuff.
In California they do the same system (open house) and my mom's house sold really after 2 open house weekends for a record price (market is riding high, anyway) by removing as much furniture as possible and moving all the remaining furniture around to make it look like a designer showcase home (a friend had the knack for how to do that; funny, because she's a PI in real life!). But the real thing was showing off the house's best feature (a terrific view).

Do they sign contracts within days of accepting an offer in NZ, too? I thought that was the best thing about the California system! Still has to pass surveys after that, but both sides get hit with financial penalties if they back out without good cause.

I am desperate to get our house sold... we have a viewing Saturday, wish us luck!!

Thank you all, and good luck Zebra. PamT - we don't get house doctor (or maybe we do and I just have missed it) but your suggestions make sense. We don't have a lot of family pictures up, but I may well remove our wedding photo as it is large.

What are your views on Christmas decorations. I am tempted to take them down a couple of days early. Its just a small tree (not very tasteful, but child friendly) and some cards arranged over a doorway. I have all the stuff to make the tree designer again - but it seems a waste for one day before it all has to come down.

Also - put some music on or leave it nice and quiet. We live on a very quiet street with no road noise, so my gut feel is no music.

I think no Christmas Decs or music. Make the most of the decluttering and emphasise the quiet street. Can you leave windows open etc too ?

Also make the most of natural light and if you have any darker spots, subtle lighting. Mirrors, windows clean and polish anything that will shine !

15 windows to clean - 7 down, 8 to go. Suffice it to say we don't have any dark spots! New house has same number - it takes 15 minutes to pull the curtains of an evening. I will pull the xmas decs down, and I may open windows depending on wind which is hot and dry and makes house like an oven rather than the oasis of cool calm I was hoping to create.

The suggestions here all worked. We sold the house after just 5 days of extreme tidiness. Yay!!!!!!! First time buyers as well so no chain. All we have to do now is hope that the house we are buying passes its building check and we are good to go.

Thanks all.

Any luck selling your place (zoo?) zebra?