Your top tips for getting house ready for pictures for going on the market

[Homecountieshome]

House going on market over the next few days - we’ve got a week to get house ready for pictures!

What are your top tips?

so far I’ve got -

1. get front and back gardens trimmed mode and maintained.
2. Get a few spring and summer type, hanging baskets of flowers for front and back
3. Remove bins out of sight
4. Clear as much rubbish from every room that inevitably accumulates like dead plants or dusty pots or a bit of this and that
5. Pay particular attention to the edges, for instance, things gathering on windowsills, tops of ledges, and various things that sort of stand out
6. Attend to floor space, for example, boxes of things underneath desks or general clutter, which would also help with the viewings and the move if we start getting rid of some clutter
7. And obviously clean and touch up, any scuffs on the walls or children’s playroom or kitchen cabinets

Is there anything else that comes to mind? There are blogs on kerb appeals of houses which I am studying as well!

I massively over thought when we were getting ready to go onto the market. The most important thing is to declutter, hide away as much as you can in a loft or garage, make sure the house doesn't look too small for all your stuff even if you're moving because you need more space!

Do what you can but don't stress too much, someone isn't going to decide not to buy your house because the grass needs cut, especially at this time of year

All white bed linen always looks better in the photos. The bathroom should only have soap, loo roll and towels. Kitchen worktops should be clear. Remove all signs of pets. Load up the boot of your car before viewings if needed.

Tidy and clean inside kitchen cabinets and wardrobes as people look inside to see if they need to be replaced.

Put pet beds and feeding bowls in your car when you're leaving for a viewing. The pets too.

Stage beds, or at least make them before viewings.

Empty every bin. Put bathroom ones in the car.

Keep house viewing ready once you're on the market.

Make sure the photographs are professionally taken and make the house look bright. Bad photos usually mean a poor price is achieved. Don't use an EA who doesn't think the photos 'make much difference'.

Somehow, when I sold my last house, I ended up having the Estate Agent's 'professional photographer' take the photos. Here's what he did.....
Took all the towels off rails and bubble bath etc off shelves (this made it look so crisp, even better than my neatly folded white towels)

Undid all the 'staging' stuff I'd done, like putting a vase of flowers and a bottle of wine on the dining table. (I didn't realise how cluttered I'd made things look until they were gone)

Moved the odd bit of furniture out of the way altogether. Not having side tables and chairs in the photo make the room look much bigger and brighter.

The photos looked lovelier than the house ever had. It sold on the first day to the first viewer for the asking price.

Wow - thanks!

So much of it really comes down to clutter doesnt it - just clearing floor/looking space - accounts for such a lot.

All great advice - thanks so much :)

If no time, hire a rental unit - you can sometimes get an offer on 1st month. Bung anything and everything you can in rental unit to really empty the house of 'stuff'

When you think you've got it ready, take some photos yourself. It's much easier to see what might need changing on a screen than in real life. If you're feeling very brave put them up on here - you'll get lots of feedback!

Thank you!

What would you suggest about things like playrooms in terms of getting rid/hiding. For e.g. our conservatory is the playroom of two smalls - and we cannot exactly get rid of their dolls house/football table/kitchen/solar system - nor is it fair to them. Nor can we regularly move away such items for each viewing.

Would a compromise be that we move them out of the conservatory for the pictures and put back in? even that feels v tough to do as we'd need to move large toy items (garages, dolls houses and so on) from conservatory into some other room - whilst photographer is around?!

Likewise - should we remove all evidence of "us" - kids, DH and I from the walls? So all picture frames, pictures on walls, mantlepieces and so on? I know EA will blur for rightmove but thats not so much the question - its whether these need to be completely removed now onwards till sale agreed?

Definitely take down all the family photos and store them for your new home. A playroom can look fine in photos if it's carefully tidied with nicer items on display. The football table sounds like something I'd store away for now.

Definitely declutter but there's no need to completely depersonalise. The main issue with clutter is that it can look like there's nowhere to put things, so clear unnecessary stuff off kitchen tops, bookcases, coffee tables etc. I don't see any problem with personal photos etc and prefer a house to look happily lived in, rather than the show home look.

Declutter majorly (watch sort your life out for inspiration) it will help with packing later. Tidy everything and ideally put most the toys out of sight, nothing wrong with some personal effects out but you need to make it a blank canvas so a house for only a certain demographic

For the photos you can physically move things from room to room to clear more space as they are taking them, so take all coats off coat racks, move pouffes and things like wash basket. Or cram as much into your car as you can!

As another pp has suggested hire a storage facility for the photos and first few weeks of viewings can be helpful, we did it for our last move and it made our little playroom look fantastic. We took away all the things that didn't fit nearly into the toy storage unit so the dolls pram, a ride on toy, a basket of overflowing teddies and a tall bookcase full of crafts and board games which looked messy. We also took down all the hand drawn pictures, trinkets and junk modelling crafts so it looked more 'polished' but still showed a family space. We set up the table they use for crafting to look like a desk/workspace to appeal to a wider audience by hinting how else the room could be used.

i replaced family photos with landscape photos (just put them on top of the existing photo in the frame so they are all there for future) and took down certificates and signs with my children's names on from walls and doors. I knew there might be interest from local school families due to the location and size so wanted to anonymise things to give us and our children some privacy, especially for rightmove as it's amazing how many homes online I've recognized just from seeing the name of siblings in the decor.

I'm afraid I was brutal with my children and reassured them the changes were only temporary and we could get anything out of storage they desperately wanted in the meantime (they weren't bothered in the end). You need to achieve the best price for your home and that means making some adjustments. Once we were under offer we brought it all back so it was only a couple of weeks.

The self storage idea is definitely of interest to us ….. let me explore a bit.

thanks for taking the time to explain - we’ve massively decluttered but more can be done ..