Dressing a House when Selling?

gwynlas

Dressed to show purpose of rooms is emough table and chairs dining area, sofas living room, doubke beds desks etc. Use free from  g'tree bay etc or borrow. Ironed  bedding, fluffy towels decent air freshener. I have used boxes for beds twice. Some [eople lacj visualisation skills.

Schwarzwald

I just went through my journey of viewing 50+ properties to end up buying one ...

A well furniture'd place is likely to generate incremental interest I would say as it helps people visualize living in the space. But if it is badly done, could also have an opposite effect.

If you dont have spare furniture standing around and dont have a good interior design hand, I would probably not bother as unlikely to drive much value.

theoretica

As others have said, there might be some purpose in stopping people wondering if a room is too small for a double bed by putting one in (or some boxes with a duvet over them) or a clever use of an alcove. But I think a room that furniture will easily fit in will speak for itself as a blank canvas to enough people.

When I was buying I had the opposite - needed to firmly remind myself that just because how a property was currently furnished was not at all to my taste was not something to hold against the property!

Silvertabby

We have a 4 bed house - main suite, guestroom, hobby room and study.  An estate agent friend told us that if we ever want to sell (we don't) we would have to empty out the study and hobby rooms and put beds in there.  Otherwise prospective buyers will only see a 2 bed house.

jacko74

Thank you again for the further replies, it looks like a few basic bits of furniture wouldn't go amiss and also a few odds and ends just to make it a bit more homely and appealing.
I could always agree to these being included in the sale which as long as they're a reasonable quality would possibly be of interest to any potential holiday home/ holiday let buyers.
And yes I have also previously made mock up beds out of packing boxes!

lookstraightahead

There must be something significant else why would people look round show homes and then buy? I wouldn't but I think people buy houses purely because they like the colour of the paint or the fluffiness of the towels.

Disjoint

DRESS THE HOUSE! I've done my research and this was my conclusion. I was also in the property business, there is a reason why developers always have a show room... Or dress their flats.

I did a very nice project that was just perfect in central London recently - all brand new etc... I inquired with some companies to dress the house. It was expensive and IMO not worth it, solution? IKEA
I bought everything on IKEA, they delivered it all directly to the address - one day of assembling everything together. Everything was new. Spent less than £3k - towels and fresh towels with pretty soap. Fake flowers with pretty vases etc... Carpet in all the rooms. This was a 4 bedroom house. It looked amazing on the pictures, IKEA is contemporary and looks great. It's neutral and clean. If you are thinking of chucking in old furniture, best not to do that - you might turn people off.
Best part? New owner only wanted a couple of the furnitures, as it was a tough negotiation process I chucked in a few for free. For the rest I sold everything on gumtree, new IKEA furniture on gumtree go super fast - I made over £1k back. Finally my wife liked the carpets so much that we took them all in. All the small decorative stuff we also took in.

Moral of the story: £1500 net of costs if you subtract the cash we got back from selling and the stuff we kept for ourselves...

Also paid a photographer £300, guy was EXCELLENT - and he did a 3D tour of the house where you could walk in every room. Estate agents don't bother with this, as they are crap in general. Photos looked amazing, it sold the house - thanks to the furnitures.

Ibizafan

Interestingly, staging a home for sale is big business in Australia, and very popular with vendors. My son and his partner engaged a company to stage their flat (or unit as they call it over there) and it looked fantastic with just a few pieces of well placed furniture. They were pretty sure that it was the reason that they had multiple offers on the open day, while a flat in the same block which was unfurnished took much longer to sell.

JuzaMum

I wouldn't use air freshener. Some people get headaches from them and personally I hate them. As for fabreeze 🤮. Some might wonder what smell you are trying to hide

jacko74

Actually I've just recalled my experience from when I last sold a house back in 2012 when it was much less of a sellers market than it is now.

The house was furnished but only to a very basic, bland, minimalist (typical single bloke!) standard, it was on the market for about 3 months with quite a few viewings but no offers at all, I then spent only about £200 on some scatter cushions, rugs, a few pictures and flowers etc... the next 3 viewings all in the space of a fortnight resulted in 3 offers!

Perhaps it was just a coincidence, I find I hard to believe that people really could be so easily swayed by such a simple and cheap makeover but who knows.