What constitutes of a good property brochure?

[strictlovingmum]

Our house is going on the market next week, ES is coming tomorrow to take some pics, please tell me what constitutes of a good house brochure in your opinion?
I want to get it right, and hopefully get some viewings soon.
What makes you (going by the brochure pick up the phone and arrange the viewing?
Which rooms do you think are the essential to be in the brochure?
And any other tips or suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated.

IMO (Mortgage Advisor who has a big property problem!) wonders if they have property anonymous

Good pictures - not haphazard ones that are shakey or of just a feature in one room as opposed to a picture of the feature and the room iyswim

Room dimensions in Mtrs and Ft & Inches (because I hate having to work it out)

I want to see pictures of the following:

Picture of the front of the house

Picture of the rear of the house

Picture of front and rear garden

Picture of Kitchen

Picture of Diner (if not with Kitchen or Lounge)

Picture of Lounge

Picture of Master Bedroom

Picture of another Bedroom (minimum - prefer all but not always poss)

Picture of Family Bathroom

Do they put the EPC in a brochure? That could be useful. Not that I ever read those because frankly as a buyer I'd be asking you the running cost at second viewing.

Floorplan

A good brochure for a seller is not necessarily the same for a buyer! So all the photos listed above are great as a buyer, but as a seller you need to be showcasing your house's good points and minimising its bad points. Try to examine the photos really dispassionately, it's easy not to notice tatty bits, peeling paint, cluttered area, etc when you see them all the time. Get the agent to re-take any you're not happy with, don't just accept second-rate photos. The photos are the thing that will make people look, in adverts, in the shop window and on the details, so these are so important to get right. No-one will be reading room sizes etc if they don't like what they see in the pics. Hope it goes well!

Gonzo33 good points above, regarding pictures, we started slowly looking(only window shopping for now) and some of the internet brochures we have seen are not fit for purpose.
No EPC around here, not anymore, but your advice is sensible, to ask questions about running costs on second viewing, I would be more then happy to answer those on the second viewing.
To what degree one should de clutter?
Will it help if all is in very good order and tidy, or it is not really important?
Will buyer use their imagination or it helps if they can see everything clearly?

SayItLoud, I don't think ES we are using will produce floor plans, are they really that important?

we've just finally moved after 18 months on the market, so i've looked at a lot of details over that time...

a floorplan really helps a lot and will cut down on pointless viewings

if there's a room that's a problem, or something about the house that might put people off, it's better to actually have it on the details, as again you won't have your time wasted by people saying 'oh, we'd have loved it if the 3rd bedroom wasn't tiny/the back garden looks out on the railway line etc'

i think a lot of people don't have a lot of imagination, so definitely declutter and tidy and clean... i don't think a house needs to be totally depersonalised, but if you've got a collection of 560 kinder egg toys on custom built display shelves, they probably ought to go into storage

I have de cluttered as much as possible, put lot of things in cellar, stored in boxes, friend's garage is also holding lot of our staff for us.
Cleaned top to bottom, we don't know where half of our staff is all in hope for a good pictures(sale), these are funny times, hopefully we will get lucky, I am trying to remain optimistic, but where we are not much is selling at all.

Definately declutter. Make it look like everything has a place (which is not the floor If I see pictures of a cluttered house I think the owner doesn't want to sell.

Personally I like floor plans to see the flow of the house, see how anal I am!

I'm intrigued now, I want to see your house..ha ha

for me, floor plans are essential.
I have been accused of being Ann Maurice in the past (!) but here goes:
Stage all bedrooms as bedrooms.
Remove all evidence of children from the public rooms.
remove up to a third of all furniture and try to show as much floor as possible.
remove Laundry baskets, clothes airers wastepaper baskets etc
No red walls or anything like.
Remove rugs from hardwood floors.
open all curtains/blinds
Only two appliances on kitchen worktops.
no pets or evidence of pets
Nothing personal (including children's names up in their bedrooms)

floorplans!!! I can't bear brochures that don't have them. I like to do the imaginary walk through the house using them.

FLOOR PLANS ARE ESSENTIAL.

I also assume weird layout if they aren't there. You can't picture the house properly without them; if it was a maybe option, I'd be more likely to not bother going for a viewing.

Also - don't be tempted to make the main pic of anything other than the front of the house. I skim the front page of the ads looking for the type of house I want (looking at rental at the mo but same thing as when we were buying) - if the main pic is of a lovely fireplace or something I mentally tune out!

Make sure all pic are as 'far back' as possible - focusing in on a part of a room is a. irritating b. gives the impression that the room is tiny.

I think:

Plenty of pictures
floor plans, with dimensions
and if it's on a main road then say so!

Oh and if there's something like listing or thatch or preservation orders on trees etc.

of course none of this will prevent people coming round and saying

"oh, it's a shame the kitchen is so small" (yes, i know, it shows that on the brochure)

or

"what a pity it only has 3 bedrooms as we wanted 5" (oh hang on, we forgot to include on the brochure the secret room only accessible through a magic fireplace)

or

"i would buy this house if it was in a completely different location, as really i wanted to live 5 miles up the road" (that's why it tells you the street on the bloody brochure)

De clutter, Floorplans, dimensions of all rooms and list stuff that you will leave, i.e. plumbed in fridges. Iif you have light fittings you want to keep take down and replace BEFORE you put the house up for sale. Tidy garden. Make sure front door looks nice. Move cars and bins from drive for photos.

Then prepare for people to waste your time. Our house is up for sale and I have also had some truly stupid comments.

'its not in the village (2 miles south)'

'too many stairs' - house is clearly 4 stories in picture - how do we get up to the top - fly??

'If you will take 100k off the asking price we might be interested - really??'

Toilet seats down for photos and viewings.

Also suggest photographs of the rooms are taken as opposed to pictures of a table with a vase of flowers on which is what I have had sent to me before.

Agree with family photos being dominating, clear the clutter from desks, worktops & windowsills.

foodjunkie -I've seen that too where they look as if they're selling a piece of furniture rather than a house as it dominates the photos.