Small Details Create the Big Picture

We had an interesting experience in the office last month which highlighted just why we believe in getting property in good order before putting it on the market.

We valued a nice house in a good location, with fair sized rooms and a large garden. There were a few odd jobs which needed doing such as replacing a few missing tiles in the shower room and repairing a broken back gate.

A few other areas also needed attention – a few missing handles from a couple of kitchen cabinets, a back door which took a good pull to get open and some pretty tatty carpet in a little box room.

We advised the vendor that it was a good investment getting all these little odd jobs sorted before putting the house on the market. It would cost them around £300 to rectify all the niggly little issues.

Their initial reaction was to leave them as they were as ‘people like changing things when they move in anyway’.

While this is sometimes the case we recently had a couple come in looking for a place to buy who clearly stated that they just wanted to move straight into a property without ‘having to do anything for a year’.

This is often the situation with older buyers, families with very young children and people with tight budgets.

Also bear in mind the message it sends out if you don’t fix those little things. Potential buyers like to think a property has been well cared for over the years. Leaving little things undone makes people wonder what else the owner has failed to do around the home.

Thankfully we won the instruction for the home, the vendor took our advice and got in a handyman and the property has already received offers.

Interestingly the offers have all come from the type of ‘we’re not into DIY’ buyers I mentioned above.

By doing the little jobs and taking care of the small details you can be making your house more attractive to a larger part of the market and adding thousands to the value of your property for a small outlay.

Thanks for reading,

Terry

PS: If you have any property related questions we’re here to help. Just give me a call on 01444 245 201.