if I wanted to sell my house quickly..

[ShrinkingViolet]

..what would be the best (and cheapest) things to do to make it more saleable?
Would a-bit-battered paint on the doors and frames matter? What about painting the outside of the house (the worst bit I can do without it making the rest look too bad, but I'd need to get someone in to do it otherwise). Would cheap plain white/cream tiles in the kitchen put you off?
Also how ethical is it to offer to sell stuff like the cooker, fridge, freezer, climbing frame, etc for cash and not include it in the price of the house to keep that below the stamp duty threshold?

Just make sure it is uber-clean and tidy. No clutter in sight! As long as the tiles in the kitchen were clean, I wouldn't care. Just remember, people should be looking at the house and not the decor. Maek sure your gard4en is tidy too.

I wouldn't have a problem with buying the stuff for cash if it kept you under the threshhold and I don't think many other people would either.

Good luck!

Hi ShrinkingV, we're just thinking about this ourselves. My priorities are (it's got 7 years' wear and tear, 3 child family), no order:

paint front door
paint front window sill and frame
put flowering plants in front of house
fill in wall cracks
repaint internal walls and woodwork cream
new curtains/rehang grotty ones
powerclean rear patio
tidy up garden/clear home clutter away

If money were no object I'd recarpet.
White/cream tiles would be fine I think however cheap.

I think it's fine to sell cooker etc outside asking price but if they don't want them you'd have to take them away maybe.

Good luck!

yes agree with clean and fresh (not spelling of deoderisers .. open windows to get fresh air)

plain tiles good

get rid of as much clutter as possible and maybe a coat of pail paint

tidy up entrance and hallway

cookder / fridge / freezer / climbing frame don't tend to be in the price of houses IME .. but I would say be careful because if the buyer doesn't want them then you'll have to take them out of the house

Make entrance of house as attractive as poss.

and clean clean clean......

get a bloody good agent - one who's sold quickly before, who'll be able to talk up your house, make it seem special and pack them thro the door - that's how we sold ours. Surprised to find how grateful I feel towards an estate agent and one whom we paid £5k for the privilege! Seriously, it was worth it though, pick well!
you can do fridge etc as fixtures & fittings to a reasonable level, cash I think. But be careful, this is checked sometimes and you'd be unlikely to get away with £10k for example of F & F! We'd all be doing it otherwise - we've just paid out over £25k in stamp duty so would love to have done a deal but agent/solicitor said no way.

oh and decluttering most important, IMHO. Amazing how even things like the occasional photo can distract a potential buyer. Remove all that you can and replace with the occasional vase of flowers.

Don't forget to remove any pets if you have any. (I used to hide our hamster away in a cupboard)

Imagine if they'd opened the cupboard and reported you to the Hamster protection league!!

Price it realistically. And offer your particular agent an extra £250/£500 in cash in his pocket if he secures a sale resulting in exchange of contracts by x date. It's amazing what an incentive like that can do...

Go for "kerb appeal" ie. make sure that the outside of the house encourages people to want to go further and look inside - plants in the garden or in pots , path swept, paint (or at least wash down) front door and windows, clear away bins/recycling etc.

Inside get rid of clutter and old tatty belongings. Try and hide as many toys away as possible in the childrens bedrooms, take down posters,stickers and other childrens tatty paraphernalia so the walls are clear and the bedrooms look bigger and more neutral.

Define areas ie. if you have a dining room make sure its got a dining table and chairs and that its not full of computers, toys etc.

Never heard of that one before TootyFrooty. I exchanged last Tuesday and completed on my sale yesterday, we ended up using 2 estate agents who were shit to say the least no £500 cash in their pockets would have made any difference. We only exchanged because the buyers and I kept in contact and sorted out problems between ourselves.

I agree with clean, clean,clean. Declutter your kitchen as much as possible i.e. we have a large microwave which we hid in the car. Also tidy all dc toys away for viewings and make sure their bedrooms are tidy (I have one friend who refuses to do this and her house went on at the same time as me and is still up for sale, she has even had feed-back about it and she still refuses to tidy up!) also get your dh to take the children out when viewers come round.

didn't think of that Wisty

lol

thanks everyone, still waiting to find out if we do actually need to sell quickly (might be moving abroad), but it's certainly concentrated DH's mind on actually finishing up some of the DIY we've started over the years .
Only problem with the decluttering is that the weather's too awful to make car boot sales worthwhile, and I don't think I can be hassled with ebay. I've put out double the amount of binbags this past fortnight though

We:

• cleaned and declutteredhouse
• made front garden look decent (put a few potted plants out there, swept up, washed path & front step etc)
• tidied up garden a bit
• cleaned windows

That was it - no redecorating (we have dirty-ish carpets and walls because of wear and tear but any sensible buyer will look beyond that). We just made it as empty looking / spacious as possible (hid junk in all sorts of cupboards and under bed etc lol), and played up to its strengths (e.g. big master bedroom, so we decluttered this completely to show it off).

We've been house hunting these past few weeks. There were some lovely houses and some awful ones. None really mattered more than the location, parking, noise/quiet/neighbours and size of the rooms. I can imagine my own furniture etc in a room but can't imagine living with noisy neighbours. So I'd say tidy up but don't over-do it, a realistic price is more important.

We did little but tidy up (although that was a fairly mammoth task in itself ) and had no problems.

Get a good estate agent who gets people through the door.

hmm, location is good (junior and secondary school, mainline train station 5 mins walk away), off-street parking (but shared driveway which might be an issue possibly), families with children all around - how do you play that? "wonderful people, so friendly" or "well, we hardly notice them because of the age/sex differences"?
Need to do some major sorting out of the house from the front gate in though - it's somethign I very rarely notice as I do door-car-door mainly. Will take a walk down the street tomorrow and have a proper look