Estate agent photos- small flat

[MrBobLoblaw]

I know this topic has been covered before but people always seem to have a garage or somewhere else to hide all their crap in!

Our flat will hopefully be going on the market soon and therefore we will be having our EA photos taken. Ours is a small one bed flat and I understand that to make your place look nice, you basically have to hide all your shit. But we have nowhere to hide it!! We have a toddler who of course comes with all of his own stuff. Does anyone have a good suggestions? And any other tips for making your home look it's best for photos please would be gratefully received.

I read online that you should remove any rugs if you have wood flooring - do you agree?
Also- blinds half down?

Thanks in advance!

Box up crap. Move crap from room to room as photos taken. Then put box of crap into car for viewings.

Agent should be able to advise on photos - it’s good to have bright rooms - the sun was so bright when we had our photos taken that he came back to take our south facing room photos.

Ah yes I should've added.. we don't have a car, garden, balcony - anywhere
I guess it'll just have to be boxed and shooftied from room to room.

But what to do with the cot?! I don't want that in the bedroom photos but not sure I can move it.. unless DP helps me move it to the lounge in the morning and then me and the photographer try and get angles where you can't see it. It wouldn't fit in the kitchen.

can you ask a neighbour if you can stash stuff at their place during viewings?

Or you could get a storage unit for stuff that you definitely won't need till after you've moved.

I know there's a cost to this but we put stuff in a storage unit til the house sold. Figured in the grand scheme of house move costs it was worth it

Thanks both. Maybe storage is worthwhile.
Couldn't ask a neighbour as their flats are just as compact as ours (it's a block so they're all identical!). We're on a massive de clutter mission too so hopefully when we've got rid of all the crap it won't be so much stuff to move about anyway.

An estate agent told me that a potential purchaser could not visualise whether her cot would fit in a house. The estate agent ended up borrowing a cot and taking another photo, so maybe you could leave it.

Potentially @suedebottom but I thought because it's just a one bed it'd be more suited to a FTB or single person, so they'd rather see a nice spacious double. With the cot it there's still space but it's definitely cramped. It's probably 14ft by 11ft or something so not huge.

If it's one bedroom you maybe want a picture with and without the cot. When we sold our 3 bed house, we had the small box room as a nursery, with cot in. We got the pictures done, then swapped the cot for a full size single bed, changed the decor and re-did the photo. We then used both, to show the versatility and prove a single bed would fit!!

It might be useful to see a cot will fit, but also attractive to see how spacious the room is.

When we sold our small flat we used a storage facility. The couple of hundred quid it cost us we more than recouped. Our buyers even commented how much storage space we had (it was an ex-newbuild flat so largely bugger all)! Agree with comments above that a 1 bed will appeal to a single person or young couple so definitely see if you can move the cot for photos and viewings and make the most of the space.

I got a storage unit when I was selling my house - the photos made every room look huge because they only had minimal furniture and a few tasteful accessories. I got an asking price offer within an hour of it going on the market so well worth the cost for me.

Most storage places will give you the first month half price or something. You might be surprised how reasonable it is.

That's a really good idea about the cot. We've rejected a nice house because we didn't think about would fit in the master.

*because we didn't think a cot would fit in the master

Do you not have any friends / relations who would put a few boxes in their garage for a few weeks ?

I mean, for viewings, you can always stash "stuff you need but makes the place look untidy" in your car, but a few boxes less 'stuff' that you can manage without will help with looking spacious.

We could potentially store stuff at MILs house @BackforGood but we're all in London so no one really has much space, let alone a garage sadly

We don't have a car but I'm thinking now that probably using storage is the best way to hide the crap and we'll just have to hire a car to get it all there.

Glad to hear that hiding the stuff worked for a few of you and I know how important making things look uncluttered is so that's really my goal. It's going to be hard with a toddler in tow!!

Boxman!!! For £5 per crate per month they will bring you empty (big!) crates, and take them away and store them. They will deliver them back anywhere in London (eg, straight to your new house...).
It's brilliant. Basically empty all your "deep" cupboards into the crates (eg, Xmas stuff, clothes you only wear to weddings, less used kitchen stuff, things you are keeping for future kids, out of season things, heck even suitcases etc), have them taken away, (make a note of what is in what crate and if you need something you can have that crate brought back temporarily), and put all the crap which is usually out (toys...) into the now available space.

The best thing I did was taking photos of each room myself and looking at them first - all the stuff and clutter just jumps out at you, things that you don't notice just standing in the room. It really helped me choose what to discard and what to pack away. We had a loft space, but in your situation is consider a storage unit.

That Boxmaster thing sounds like a brilliant idea.

I would recommend you empty one kitchen cupboard to be your temporary dumping ground for when tidying for viewings. All the surface clutter - papers etc - just bung in there. Also have a nice grown up basket somewhere with a lid and put toddler's favourite toys in there. When you are tidying up for viewings, get the basket out, clear up round toddler as they're playing with this stuff, then your last job before you leave the house is to sweep those few toys into the basket.

Boxman sounds awesome! Thank you @DustyDoorframes!! I'll definitely check that out.

I like the idea of taking photos too @AwkwardPaws27 Thank you. I'm already looking round the flat with laser vision thinking 'that can go.. that can go...'. I'm going to feel so happy when all the crap is gone I can already tell!!

Like the posh basket tip, thanks @MySecondBestBroomstick and tbf he'd rather be playing with a spatula and a roll of tin foil than any of his toys anyway ha

We put everything out in the corridor outside our flat!

I don't think a cot would put me off buying a flat. First of all, if a cot fits in the master bedroom and I didn't have a baby, I would just be picturing getting a nice wardrobe or something for that space. Second, it would be reassuring to me that you're moving because the family is expanding, not because of horrible neighbours or a new development nearby that will send the property value down or excessive noise or whatever. It will be obvious this worked for you as long as it could have, but now you need some more space for your child.