Refurbishing your home for sale can be a good idea if you want to achieve a higher selling price. However, you probably don’t want time and money to go into this. Yet it can be an enormously smart idea to do so. Of course, you want as many viewers as possible, and a refurbished house can help.
As an experienced sales agent, we know that fixing up your house results in better pictures and therefore more viewings and a higher sales value. It can also help with the valuation of the house. In short, for anyone who wants to sell his/her house, this can be a good idea, because small details can already result in a larger increase in value.
In this article, we’d like to tell you what you can do yourself to better market the house. In addition, you can always ask for our help after reading as well. For this you can always contact us without obligation.
Tips on self-decorating the house for sale
Focus on small improvements that are going to produce the biggest possible result
Fixing up your home for sale doesn’t always have to take a lot of money and time. The trick is to achieve the best possible result with the least possible investment. We now first deal with precisely the small adjustments that make for a big effect.
This means that it is not always necessary to carry out conversions and renovations. Certainly not in the short term. Don’t want to sell yet but plan to in a few years? Then, conversions and renovations may actually be a good idea. Here we explain more further in the article.
Exterior house refurbishment for sale
As you probably already know, a first impression is decisive. Therefore, the exterior of your home is the first thing people see during viewings. That’s why we also start with the tips for redecorating the outside of the house.
Fix the following things on the outside of your home:
- Take care of your garden.
You can actually think of the garden as the icing on the cake. Through a well landscaped and manicured garden, you are sure to score points with viewers. The garden can also sometimes be a dealbreaker for potential buyers.
In a beautifully maintained garden with clean tiles, a good patio and freshly cut grass, you can hardly go wrong. In this way, visitors can already see themselves. So if you do have a barbecue, be sure to leave it there.
- Paint the outside of your house.
Exterior painting is just as important as interior painting. Therefore, it is definitely advisable to pick this up as well if needed. You can think about exterior window frames but also definitely the front door. We do recommend starting this in time, as exterior painting often takes more time than the rest.
- Other tips for the outside of your home.
What you also have to pay attention to is that all windows are closed, garden furniture is dressed, the grass is mowed and the sidewalk is swept. Trash cans should always look neat, not be overflowing or surrounded by tawdry trash bags; This is often the first contact potential buyers have with your home. Buyers often drive down the street to get a first impression. Do this yourself and see what catches your eye and this is where you can have a positive influence.
Fixing up the inside of your house for sale
Fix the following things on the inside of your home:
- Paint interior walls in a light, neutral color (if needed)
You’re probably familiar with it yourself, after a while the walls are covered in black smudges and stains. When furniture has stood against the walls, stains or color differences often occur here as well. There is nothing to do about this, unfortunately.
What you can do now, however, is give your walls a new coat of paint. In doing so, choose paint in a light, neutral color. This way the walls look neat again and the room also looks nice and light and as spacious as possible, which of course makes the house attractive to visitors.
- Make sure you have neat wallpaper and fresh carpeting.
Loose carpeting or wallpaper can be an eyesore during viewings. So make sure the home has fresh wallpaper and nice flooring. This will make your home look more beautiful but also especially much neater.
- Tidy up all the small items.
Remove all small items and clutter such as rugs, piles of magazines, toys and stuffed animals from the children.
Remove as much as possible. This will make your home look spacious, calm and light. Walk through your home as if for the first time and see what you don’t need. If you’ve done this, the living room quickly comes across as much more “peaceful” to the visitor.
- Provide good lighting in every room.
In order to show any space at its best, the right lighting is very important. Therefore, make sure you have proper lighting in the right places.
Are you in doubt about the best lighting? If so, it may be a good idea to discuss this topic with your real estate agent (or, of course, with friends and family).
- Think about the floor
Make sure the floor looks neat. Repair small flaws of beauty such as a loose baseboard. Remember no shoes in the hallway, as this looks messy. An empty and tidy floor makes the room look larger, which is naturally more attractive to visitors.
- Make sure the bathroom and toilets are clean.
It is always good to make the bathroom and toilets as neat as possible before selling your home. Again, it is important that the floor is empty. So also make sure that the shower and/or bath are neatly cleaned up and that no hygiene products such as shampoo or air freshener are still visible here. And close the toilet seat if possible.
Remodel and/or renovate house to fix up for sale?
Don’t want to sell your home now but are considering doing so in a few years? If so, a remodel and/or renovation might be a good idea. By increasing the living area you immediately ensure a higher value.
Firstly, you will benefit from more living comfort and secondly, the value will increase. What you do need to consider is the fact that you will never recoup the entire investment 100% during the sale. Yet there are certainly jobs to be done to secure an increase in valuation. We have listed a few for you:
- Increasing the living area.
Buyers always look at the living area. You could enlarge this by means of an extension or build-up.
- Renovation.
Renovating a kitchen or a bathroom, for example, can quickly provide a higher value. But renewing your floor, windows, door and facade can also contribute to this. No visitor is waiting for overdue maintenance. The better these amenities are, the higher the value will eventually be.
- Insulation.
Sustainability and saving on energy costs are becoming increasingly important these days. Therefore, install insulated glass, wall insulation or floor insulation to sell your house faster. New windows can also contribute to this but beware, this has less effect in terms of energy savings than roof, floor or wall insulation.
Our bonus tip for fixing up your home for sale
Switch your sales agent for help!
Refurbishing your home doesn’t always have to take a lot of time and money. A sales broker knows exactly what the dealbreakers are for visitors. Sometimes this is already in the small things. In addition, of course, it is nice if you are assisted by a professional.
Also, most sales brokers offer a service in the form of sales styling. It can often be incredibly rewarding to have a professional stylist “pimp” your home in order to sell it better and faster.
Visitors should see it in front of them and feel, that this is their home. A wonderful place where they really do walk in every day and live there, live and be happy. And that moment happens in the first 5 seconds when they come in.
Using sales styling can certainly be worthwhile. This is also a wise investment when you have less feeling or time for this yourself.
Are you interested in selling your home and want to know what your home is currently worth? Then you can also come to us for a free valuation!
Why choose VK Makelaars as your sales agent?
We are a full service sales broker. There are many of those. But what makes us truly unique is that we do custom work.
Many brokerage firms work like a sales factory with an office staff that does 70% of all the work and an army of brokers in the field. This often has a good established name and a marketing machine running around it to constantly leverage and sell as much stock of homes as possible.
If your sales signs are everywhere, that also has a sucking effect. A fine strategy, but not for us. We only employ real estate agents and with us you always deal with 2 permanent agents of which 1 is the main contact.
Our brokers start each sales file from scratch themselves and we always take into account the specific needs of the client. An awful lot of time goes into each sales file.
When we look back at the end of a sales file at how much detail work, questions answered, advice given, small actions, large actions and especially customization strategy there has been, we have to conclude then we see that it really has been a very labor intensive file. And those are still the normal sales files. A broker from a sales factory can never give the time and personal attention that we do. All of this always results in much better sales results. And by sales result, we mean sales revenue, but also customer satisfaction and the fact that our sales files are legally rock solid (we have NEVER had a legal dispute).