Preparing to Sell – What Vendors Need to Know

Moving into a thriving sellers market, RT Edgar’s Toorak Director Sarah Case sits down with us to discuss key property preparation tips that vendors can utilise to get the most out of their sales campaign.

Selling your home can be an emotional process, prioritising strategy, value and input to attract the right buyers and obtain the best possible result. As such, we’ve put together a collection of expert advice to assist our current and future clients with their selling journey!

The basics of property preparation

The most crucial part of preparing the home for sale in Sarah’s professional opinion, is decluttering. Removing personal effects such as photographs and memorabilia assists buyers to comfortably imagine themselves in the home.

Most importantly, Sarah states “you have to declutter the home and remove longstanding personal belongings regardless, as you are moving out either way, so it’s a lot more beneficial if this is completed before inspections rather than after you’ve sold.”

When to put money into pre-sale property improvements

As a general rule of thumb, Sarah advises, “we typically don’t recommend vendors to renovate bathrooms and kitchens as it is quite a personal space, unless of course you are in the building game.

It is most important to have the house in working order, so the improvements we do encourage are ensuring the heating/cooling is functional, as well as applying a fresh coat of paint. In addition to this, general presentation like tidying gardens and cutting back trees can help buyers gauge an accurate size of the block, which is something we certainly recommend vendors to complete.”

Is interior styling/furniture hire necessary?

If a property is vacant, Sarah strongly recommends styling the home with furniture for a multitude of reasons. “Purchasers will tend to focus more on fixtures, fittings and skirting boards or even possible hairline cracks that they otherwise wouldn’t necessarily notice if there is amazing furniture and coloured artwork on the walls are too. When you use furniture it also makes the house look bigger by showing what the space can hold, contrary to popular belief.”

General styling improvements are still important, but can be made simple by using a few key pieces or smaller items of furniture to make the room look bigger. We can also reconfigure the existing items e.g. swapping pieces of furniture around from different rooms.

Sarah adds, “in other cases where professional styling may be a lot for some families/older couples to achieve, simple tactics like neutral bedding with coloured cushions or new lamp shades are an inexpensive way to depersonalize and refresh.”

What to keep in mind when establishing your price range

It is important for vendors to understand that a crucial step in the sales campaign is how agents establish a price range, and that this based purely on comparable sales.

Sarah reminds vendors, “legally we have to compare similar properties, alike in land size, number of bedrooms and whether they are located on a main road or a side street. While the process of selling a home or investment property can be quite emotionally driven, we only base our pricing on the recent sales in their area, our experience and the current what the current market is doing.”

What happens if my property passes in, and how do negotiations usually pan out?

Sarah advises, “if a property doesn’t sell under the hammer, usually there are people on the day who are waiting to see what happens, who have been there throughout the campaign and who may not have put their hand up at the Auction. These are the buyers we can then negotiate with, as they’ve already gone through a lot of steps to get to where they are on Auction day, so they are generally primed and ready to purchase.”

Once the passed in reserve is set, it is very common that agents get quite a few people coming back to the home and are willing to then start the negotiation process.

“If negotiations on the day don’t come to fruition, most of the time homes sell in the next 7-10 days post-Auction,” Sarah advises.

RT Edgar are all about supporting clients and buyers throughout the selling process, to make it as seamless and stress-free for both parties. Sarah’s considered advice for vendors aims to inform, educate and assist those who are considering or currently in the process of selling their home or investment property, in order to obtain the best possible outcome.