Prepping house to sell

Better_Days

A couple of landscapy photos per room at the max will be fine. You want people to be looking at the house, not distracted by the photo's on the walls.

Good idea to start boxing up sooner rather than later. It always takes longer than you think it will and it is hard work too (not even taking into acount the amount of work 5 children must generate )

rosie383

I would just take down all the pictures and don't bother trying to put anything up in their place. No one will notice bare walls tbh so I certainly. wouldn't waste the time or effort.

I'm sure you will love living back in NI. It has changed massively in the past almost twenty years since I left and every time I go back there is something new to see and visit. My sister is always out at some cultural event or coffee shop or just even going for a walk down by Donaghadee or Carrickfergus.

Quizzical_Squirrel

1. Look at photos on Rightmove of houses, like yours, that are selling.

2. Take photos of your own house from the same angles.

3. Compare and contrast. Once you see it in stark, factual and unemotional 2D photographs, what needs doing will become clear.

CWSmith

All good advice here, but I would add - make sure the front of the house is as good as you can get it. Weed and tidy the front garden (if you have one), remove any litter etc. etc. Ditto the back garden.

Other than that, it's down to the requirements of your potential buyers and what appeals/doesn't appeal to one will not appeal/appeal to the next.

The only house we viewed that I absolutely hated was (oddly enough!) the one that had been polished to within an inch of it's life. The owner were a lovely old couple, but with the perfectly arranged bouquet of flowers absolutely centred on the table, and the cushions on the sofa that I would swear had been equidistantly positioned with the aid of a tape measure, I've never felt more uncomfortable in a house in my life! When I saw the throw on the bed - laid down in lots of tiny little pleats so that it matched the width of the bed exactly, I wanted to run. Oh dear ...... but perhaps that's just me.

rosie383

This ^^^^^^ would make me hate it too. Good idea about taking pics and looking at them.
Kerb appeal helps if there is anything positive you can do. Eg, I have steps down to the front door and the bits of wall looked yucky and grubby. I brushed them and gave them a coat of white masonry paint that was lurking from another job. Took a couple of hrs but no cost and made a huge difference. There is also a wee bit of garden and the day that I was going to get some wee bedding plants to put in it, the guy who puts up the for sale signs came in his big boots and stood all over it and hammered the sign right in the middle of it. Glad I spotted it before I bought the plants!

Ivana_Tinkle

Tidying everything away is by far the most important thing, IMO, especially toys and kitchen and bathroom stuff. People always claim they can "see though" clutter but in reality it's the messy, cluttered houses with nothing really wrong with them which just don't sell for months/years on end (and which then go for a bargain price). Most people can't see though this stuff at all - they walk in, go "yuck - just not for me" and don't think any further.

indsty

Congrats on the new job. I guess your kids are all very young, but definitely get them on board. Explain about having to sell the house etc and get them to send vast amounts of toys to your relatives, keeping one box each at home. If they help by keeping it tidy etc then new toys (bribe) will be at the new house. Arrange for children to be removed temporarily during viewings.

It sounds like you are reasonably organised anyway, so you should be fine. My pet hates are mould round the bath sealant, messy front gardens and anything doggy or smoky. The more you declutter the bigger the rooms will look.

Most viewers are very realistic about viewing family homes and do not expect show houses.