First viewing from prospective buyers tomorrow...dos and don'ts, please...

[jaamy]

We have our first viewing from prospective buyers tomorrow. Is there anything you have experienced/ not experienced on a viewing that has put you off, or sealed the deal?? Please.

TIA

Be positive. It sounds obvious, but lots of people are embarrased to big up their home, so they run it down instead. The buyers believe you.

Also, again abvious, clean up! The amount of homes I've viewed that were a mess. When I was selling mine I kept it like a show home for three weeks. Hated living there for that time, but it sold quick.

Do not follow the buyers round, together with your husband, carrying on a continuous monologue between the two of you "and here's a cupboard, it's really handy, did you know we re-did the fascia and guttering on the outside recently, and we've just put in a new boiler, so all those jobs which you want to do when you move house are already done, ha ha ha, etc".

Do not fill every single spare surface with your enormous collection of antique-effect dolls, teddy bears and porcelain elephant ornaments.

Do mention briefly and factually anything which the viewer might actually want to know.

Don't say the bleeding obvious eg "here's the cupboard under the stairs, really useful for storing your hoover".

Don't say anything negative. Obvious but easy to do if you are nervous!

Good luck! We have just sold our house and are now going full steam ahead on finding one to buy.

If your kids are going to be around, get them to be doing something out of their bedrooms. If you are shown a bedroom and there is a child in there, either playing or doing their homework, you feel a bit intrusive looking at the room properly. It might be really nice, or have a lovely view, but most people will duck out without really looking. Brief your kids to come down and look as if they are genuinely doing something they meant to do when the viewers knock at the door. Unless, of course, the bedroom in question has bad points that you don't want somebody to notice .

Try typing and printing a basic list of good points in the area that viewers can take away with them. Nice shops; the local greengrocer; convenient parking for relatives; a nice local park or play area; a delicatessan; bus routes; where they can buy bus passes etc (Sanjay owns Smithtown News on the corner where you can buy your bus pass, very friendly and they are open until 8 if you run out of milk), that sort of thing. Perhaps a wildlife area or river walk. If somebody is coming from even 1 mile away they might not have seen the local state of the art playground or specialist food shop. It doesn't need to be more than one sheet of A4, two at most.

Oh, and make sure the front door, unless it is a natural wood look, is bright and freshly painted.

I would get the estate agent to do the viewing - make them earn their money!

As a potential buyer, I have always prefered being shown around by the EA.

I always prefer it if the estate agent shows you round as well. You feel like you can have a better look around if the owners are out.

De-clutter where you can and make sure its tidy. Not too minimal though, I saw one house which was so perfect that when I tried to imagine moving all my stuff in I realised all the rooms would suddenly be tiny. Its good to have some personal stuff around to give it more of a lived in feel.

Make sure it smells nice, quick squirt of a nice room spray (not too much) or even better get the windows open beforehand.

We sold our house after the 4th viewing when we made the EA do it - dh and I went out for lunch. As a buyer I much prefer to look round when the owners are out.

If you do want to do it yourself, then have the viewers enter the rooms first and you stand back, as it makes the room seem less cluttered.

Thank you for all the replies.
unavailable, Preggers and heated - I would rather the EA do the showing around, too but seems one is on hols and the other is already on a viewing. Was either we show or wait another week.

LOL wigeon - DH and I are likely to waffle on about all sorts of stuff. Think will hide and leave them to it.

Rebecca - good idea about the list but am afraid that would more likely put the buyers off - one of the reasons why we are moving. Front door looks good, BTW!

lindsaygii - well done you for seleling your house in 3 weeks. Hope we can be as lucky. House is a version of lived in showroom!

I don't actually mind being shown round by the vendors - most of them are lovely and quite a few EAs are annoying. The waffle in my previous post is practically a verbatim record of one particular set of vendors! Actually, they were the same lot with the mammouth china elephant / doll/ teddy collection!

And don't completely hide because I want to ask you how far your house is to the station / supermarket / what the neighbours are like / what chain you are in etc etc.

Oh, and forgot to mention that we took the standard advice about the front door, painted it a lovely shade of deep red gloss, spent the whole day doing it...then the paint all sagged because I laid it on too thick and it now looks dreadful. And we didn't have time to re-do it before it went on the market. But amazingly the house sold in 2 weeks! The inside was very clean and tidy though, so maybe the buyers managed to forget about the front door!

Where are you at the moment? Where are you moving to?

I do think it is best if only one person shows the viewers round and the other clears off with the kids