Advice please! Getting flat sale-ready!

[wheresmyliveship]

As title really...we are hoping to go on the market in the next couple of months and want to spend some free time making it ready for best possible offer. What advice would you give/what worked for you to get the best offer/sell quickly!

Thanks

De clutter as much as possible.

Remove personal stuff. You are going to be packing when you move so pack all your extra bits and pieces now to make it look as spacious and tidy as possible. Do all those odd jobs that become invisible when you live there. You may not notice grubby light pull in bathroom but viewers will! Also remove pets and yourself during viewings.

Make sure you have up-to-date info on the lease, service charges, ground rent, sinking fund and any repairs due etc.

To help the legalities move smoothly once you have an offer.

Take your own photos get an idea of the best angle or view
Look at the photos

Wobbly pictures
Hole in The wall
Clutter in top of kitchen
Clutter behind sofas
Clothes on radiators etc

Clean everything light shades window sills skirtings etc

Thanks! Trying to have a critical eye of grubby bits of wall etc and make a list to keep working on.

I remember seeing advice here about taking a picture of a room and looking at that, because you can be more critical when you’re not in the room itself.

Exciting but daunting. The spare room will be fun

Clean it and patch it up, don't remove All personal items you're selling a lifestyle. Sometimes folks go too far and make it look like an impersonal rental. bits and pieces are nice, just not too many.

Get rid of any clutter. Just make it look warm, inviting, clean, tidy. Paint over any walls where you've went nuts like purple paint or wallpaper with huge prints or something that's in your face.

If you have a lot of stuff, look at renting some storage. A lot of places do a decent introductory offer such as 2 months for the price of 1. If you are judicious with when you start the rental, you can make the most of that 2 months.

Empty one kitchen cupboard and use it for hiding last minute papers and kitchen bits for viewings.

There is such a thing as too decluttered - it can start to look stark and unwelcoming. Keep the odd ornament and something up on some walls.

Consider removing some bookcases if you have lots. They tend to cause a lot of visual clutter.

My parents have got a spare shed we can dump excess stuff into which is great.

Brilliant tip about the bookshelves actually. It’s funny because I think books really make a home, but they do seem to look like clutter when you’re trying to be critical about tidying!

What is the market like in your area? If it moves quite fast begin looking at what you might want to buy.

I agree about the selling a lifestyle thing. Who will your flat appeal to (or who would you like it to appeal to?). Reflecting that will be much better than decluttering to the bare bones. But obviously reducing excess clutter is good.
I looked at a family house that was brilliantly styled as....a family house. So there were toys around etc, just artistically left around a few rather than a mess.

If necessary, consider getting the oven professionally cleaned. New taps if old ones are tarnished or limescaled. New showerhead if required. All windows clean inside and out, carpets steam cleaned.

What is your market like? If you are in a place where flats sell easily, you may not need to go to too much effort to stage it.

If there is nowhere to store your ironing board and hoover then get them out of the flat so when people are looking they don’t think ‘ohhh, there isn’t even space to put away your ironing board’.

Clean.
Huge de clutter.
Fresh paint job.
Maintenance tip top.
Stage it to show off what a lovely flat it is and show what a nice life other people could have in it.

Depends on the market in your area, we asked our estate agent for advice, they were helpful guiding us on expectations of our likely buyers in our price bracket (first time buy or lower budget end of the family market in our case). We were suggested to leave our tiny box third bedroom as a study for example, to appeal to the young prof market, which was a surprise as we had planned to borrow a bed to market the property. (The tactic worked as our buyer wanted to use it as a dressing room for her clothes)

Don't paint unless it's a crazy colour, but clean marks where possible and do an obvious repairs like filling holes/cracks in the wall (non structural stuff, we weren't trying to cover anything up!)

We took away any photos that had us in, and replaced with some landscape ones in the same frames. We also kept a few ornaments, candle holders etc. Removed half our books from bookcase and styled and arranged by size. Took all the photos/notes off the pin board and fridge in our kitchen and replaced with a few 'art' postcards we had from IKEA.

We kept a few children toys in a storage unit in the lounge, but shoved most into our cars for photos and viewings (the jumperoo!)

Outside we put colourful planters at the front door and gave our front and back yards a good tidy up with garden furniture out.

@stickofrhubarb

If there is nowhere to store your ironing board and hoover then get them out of the flat so when people are looking they don’t think ‘ohhh, there isn’t even space to put away your ironing board’.

Brilliant. We have a cupboard for the hoover but this is great advice!

It’s definitely a first time buyer market and trying to watch on rightmove how quickly (or not) things are going. In London so should be fairly fluid but there’s a few very similar flats on the market at the moment. Guess we need to make sure we’re at least up to the standard they’re at!