This is the third in a series of blogs tackling the topic of making your Edinburgh period property sales-ready. Parts one and two focused on the more formal aspects of preparation, including elements of the home report. This blog leaps forward, and we’ll examine how to prepare for potential viewings.
If you would like to know more about surveys, take a look at this blog. For details about making a property more energy efficient, click here.
What to Expect from Property Viewings
If you’re getting ready to sell a period property, chances are that you have been to several viewings yourself. In fact, you may have sold properties before and prepared them for viewings. In that case, just think of this blog as a reminder.
Property viewings allow prospective buyers to get a feel for your period home. They want to imagine themselves and their families living in the property. They are looking to fill the space with their own personalities and valued family possessions. This is only possible if you create a space that allows viewers to look past your possessions and your family life. Knick-knacks you treasure may just alienate others and distract from the beauty of the property as a whole.
Preparing for Viewings of Your Home
Preparing for viewings revolves around making space for buyers to imagine themselves in an Edinburgh period home. Facilitating that means decluttering and deep cleaning, for example. We touched on some of these points in our first blog, mostly in the context of arranging photography and videography to market your home, but they are worth a little further consideration.
Decluttering Matters
Most of the clutter crowding our homes accumulates over time as we live our daily lives, dropping something here, and placing a few pieces of paper there. Unless you’ve been following the principles of Marie Kondo for a while, you will likely need to spend some time decluttering. Take this as an opportunity to prepare for your move and be ruthless! Hiding clutter for photography may have been a temporary solution but getting rid of it permanently will feel so much better.
Deep Cleaning … With Help
Deep cleaning is another important part of preparing for viewings. We’re not suggesting that your property is dirty, but be honest, is it as pristine as you’d like it to be for viewings? When you’re getting ready to sell and especially after a thorough declutter, your period property deserves an evenly thorough clean.
It’s often worth engaging professional help at this stage. Equipped with the right tools to access some high pelmets and chandeliers professional cleaners will make short work and leave your property sparkling so you can get on with other important selling activities.
Don’t Overlook Outside Spaces
If your period property has a front garden, remember that this space is the first thing prospective buyers see. Make sure outdoor areas like gardens and porches are kept neat and clean, free of the evidence of yesterday’s kids garden party or your dogs’ pothole making competition.
The same applies to back gardens and any other external spaces. If you don’t have the time to dedicate to preparing your outside spaces, consider hiring a landscaping service. After all, it’s hard to exaggerate the importance of making a great first impression on prospective buyers.
Should you be Styling Your Home Before Selling?
Don’t dismiss the idea of styling, or staging as it’s known, your period property in preparation for viewings and even getting in the professionals to help. Allowing your estate agent or an interiors specialist to help you dress your home can have a big impact.
Assuming your home has been decluttered and deep cleaned, most staging involves a few simple steps that make the home more relatable. Some of the more common steps of home staging include:
- Removing any unnecessary furniture. The goal is to make rooms look spacious with clean lines.
- Ensuring personal items, such as photographs, have been removed
- Remove pet items – not all viewers will be a fan!
- Clear down all worktops and table tops leaving only occasional ornamental items – this adds to clean lines when people view the room
- Aim to have plain colours or white rather than patterned – for instance with bed linen, this ensures the bed isn’t pulling all the attention and patterns may not be everyone’s taste
- Setting the dining table with placemats and cutlery to make your home more inviting
- Adding small touches like a bouquet of fresh flowers or subtly scented candles
- Investing in smaller soft furnishings to refresh the look of your home
- Opening doors and curtains, cleaning windows and allowing natural light into your home or turning on lights in every room
Staging or not, the idea is to show your home at its best whilst allowing prospective buyers to envisage their future life in a period property.
Who Conducts the Viewings?
If you prefer not to do the viewings yourself, we will show your period home to prospective buyers on your behalf. That allows you to simply get on with your life, whilst we can dedicate all our energy to marketing your home and allowing buyers to discover it.
Most buyers enjoy walking through the rooms and discovering them without being crowded by an estate agent. Prospective buyers simply like to know someone is close by to answer any questions they may have. Supporting you like that is part of our service. We will also follow up with all potential buyers after the viewing to get their feedback.
Can We Conduct Viewings When you Still Live in your Home?
The short answer is yes, we can. Many period homeowners still reside in a property when it goes on the market. For property viewings, this means compromising between family life and home staging.
It’s rarely practical to fully stage a home when your family still lives in the building. Instead, we will advise you on how to combine showing off your property with continuing to live in it. In reality, that means spending some time tidying up a little more before a scheduled viewing. We also advise you to remove personal photographs and keep your home clutter-free as much as possible.
Our Promise to You
Once viewings start, we will keep you informed every step of the way. We are happy to take care of home staging for you through our trusted contacts. If you remain on your property, we will give you ample notice before any viewings take place. If you would like to enlist professional help for decluttering and deep cleaning, we are happy to recommend partners we trust.
We will work with you to showcase your period property in a way that makes it even more attractive to prospective buyers and helps you secure the sale you want.
Contact us today to learn more about the property viewing process and how we can help you.
