May 3rd, 2018 by Chris Chapman

Part 2 – Getting the Best Price for Your Home

If you’re thinking about moving house, you want to make your home as appealing as possible. If you’re proud of your property, making it desirable enough to get a number of high-value offers should be your aim. Taking the time to prepare your house for sale can take a bit of time and effort, but it’s worth it in the long run as an in-demand house will sell faster and for more money. You could even get a bidding war going! Adding value to your property doesn’t necessarily have to cause you a lot of stress and expense. If you haven’t already, check out part 1 of this guide which is all about making your house sell faster, and read on for advice on simple and affordable steps you can take to get more money for your home.

1. Identify Your Audience

Who are you looking to sell your house to? Before you do anything else, think about who’s likely to be interested in your house given its location, size and appearance. That can help you decide how to lay out your home and how you advertise your space. If you’ve got a spare room, do you want to advertise it as a study, a gym, a nursery or something else? Patios are a great way to make the most out of a nice garden Before planning any renovations, think before you book anything in. If you live in a bungalow with a big garden, consider looking at a patio or conservatory to make the most of your properties’ strengths. If you live in a terraced house near a school, you might want to look at an attic conversion to attract young families who could make use of the extra space. These are just a couple of examples, but if you spend a few minutes researching who might buy your house, you can then start planning how to make it more appealing to them.

2. Make Essential Repairs

Make sure your roof is in top shape before you go to sell your house Once you’ve thought about how best to add value to your house, the next step is to take care of any lingering structural problems you might have been putting off. Before you even think about starting work on any painting or renovations, you’ll need to make sure the structure of your house is up to it. Roof damage is a common problem, so if your roof is sagging or leaking in any way, or if the tiles and chimney are damaged, make sure to fix that up first. Make sure you thoroughly check your roof inside and out to make sure none of the roof timbers are rotten or damaged, too! Likewise, if there’s any cracks or structural damage to your walls or flooring, make sure they’re fixed before you start trying to sell your house. Don’t be worried about getting a professional in; while it might seem expensive, structural problems with your house will cost you far more when it comes to getting your house valued!

3. Check Those Plans

Even if your ideas for improving your home don’t require planning permission, check anyway. Just the knowledge that your property is eligible for planning permission can add up to 10% to your home’s value! Getting planning permission for your home means you can advertise it based on its potential, which is really what any buyers will be looking for. Remember, they aren’t really buying your home; they’re buying their home! Planning permission makes it so much easier for any potential buyers to envision living in a property and is a simple step that many sellers overlook.

4. Give it a Lick of Paint

A sprayer like the Mylek RAPID+ is always a wise investment A new paint job on the inside and outside of your house is a really inexpensive way to add value to your home. This is especially true if your old paint is looking dull, discoloured and cracked. Use a quality paint sprayer like the Mylek RAPID+ to make short work of painting every wall and ceiling in your house. Go for a modern, monochrome look instead of bold colours. This will make your house look bright and clean, while also presenting any buyer with a blank colour palette that they can fill with their own ideas, styles and colours. That potential is what will drive up the value of your home, making a fresh lick of paint a no-brainer if you’re looking to sell!

5. Raise the Roof

If your roof is all shipshape, you could consider making the most of that with an attic conversion. This will make your house appealing to almost everyone, as the one thing everyone always needs is more space! It’s a much, much more cost-effective way of adding more space and value to your home than an extension, and a good roof conversion will add up to 20% to the value of your house. Your potential buyers could use this for storage, as a bedroom, as a laundry room, or as a study – the possibilities are endless, which is what will really sell your house to any potential buyer.

6. Get to Grips with Garages

A good garage is an extremely valuable part of your property One problem with loft conversions is that they can cause a bit of disruption to your daily life as they alter the structural heart of your home. Building or converting a garage doesn’t have that problem at all! If you have space and you don’t have one already, getting a garage built is a relatively quick and easy way to add value to your home. They give your potential buyers a safe and convenient place to store their cars, saving them (and you, while you live there) money on car insurance in the long-term. What this means for you is that garages add, on average, £11,000 to house prices, so building one is a very wise investment! If you already have a garage, you could also look at converting it into a living space depending on who you expect to come in for your house. Before going through with this it's important to make sure you have space to park your car elsewhere and a big garden with plenty of space for buyers to build sheds and other storage space if needed, but garages can be converted into living areas, studios, bars, spas and pretty much anything you can think of. If you have a large garage, you could even convert half of it and leave space for cars on the other side of a dividing wall, giving you the best of both worlds!

7. Tear Down This Wall

Open plan living areas are all the rage right now and are a great way to maximise space in your home. Consider knocking through interior walls to create a wide-open space for your potential buyers to explore. If the walls you want rid of are load-bearing, you should get in professional help, but otherwise you can do it yourself if you’re feeling confident. It’s a much cheaper and quicker way of giving you more space than an extension and can add up to 5% onto the value of your home. Plus, you won’t need planning permission for this, so that’s one less headache for you to worry about.

8. Get Smart

Appliances you can control with a smartphone are a great way to save on bills and add value to your home We mentioned this in our guide to selling your home quickly, but smart technology is a very desirable feature to have in your home! Having thermostats, lighting and kitchen appliances that can be controlled and programmed with a smartphone will save your potential buyers (and you) a bomb on your utility bills and are a great feature to include if you’re advertising your home as a modern property. Unlike many other ideas on this list, they probably won’t require too much in the way of intrusive building work either!

9. The Secret Ingredient is Your Kitchen

A clean, modern kitchen will appeal to everyone! If you only improve one room of your home, make it the kitchen. A spacious and welcoming kitchen is arguably the most desirable feature of any home! We use our kitchens for cooking, eating, working, entertaining and lots more, so you know every buyer will be impressed with a nice kitchen. Make sure you spend the most effort on this room and make it as spacious and comfortable as you can with modern fixings, surfaces and appliances. This can add around 5% onto the value of your home, so investing a bit into the kitchen is always a good idea.

10. There’s Money in the Garden

A cluttered and overgrown garden will hurt the value of your home Not literally, of course! However, if you invest a bit of it into your garden you’ll make your house a lot more attractive to a lot of people and really increase the value. Gardens offer a space for children to play in, adults to party in, and everyone to relax in. If a potential buyer views your house and finds an overgrown garden full of junk, they’re going to put in a lower offer if they put any money down at all. Keep your garden well-maintained and sprinkle some iron sulphate on your lawn to keep it looking healthy, soft, and green. If you have flowerbeds or vegetable patches, keep them healthy and show them off! They’ll present your potential buyer with an image of a garden that’s easy to maintain and easy to relax in. Present your garden as an all-purpose, clean and safe space. If you’re expecting to sell to a family, emphasise your lawn as a play area for children. If you’re looking at advertising your home to older or retired people, consider working on a patio area for summer entertaining! Always remember to bear in mind who you want to sell to, and you’ll be able to increase the value of your home by quite a bit. If you want to sell your house quickly, you should also read our guide on that very subject to get all the info you need on how to get a speedy, stress-free sale!