Buying a home is an exciting venture, but it's also a decision that requires careful consideration. Before starting it’s vital to be well-prepared, so here are 10 tips to guide you through the home buying process, ensuring that you make informed choices and find the perfect place to call your own.
First impressions count, especially if you are looking to sell your home. We know buyers are guided by emotions, and so much of this can be influenced by what they see before they’ve even stepped foot in your property. Because the exterior of your property is the first thing anyone will notice about your home, it’s important to take the time to showcase your property in the best light!
But curb appeal isn’t just about selling your property — it’s a long term investment that can make a property a more enjoyable place to live, as well as raising the value and appeal of your neighbourhood. It can also often be an inexpensive and relatively simple cosmetic makeover that still has a marked effect on the look and feel of a property, ensuring you create a meaningful and lasting first impression on visitors and prospective buyers.
If you’ve begun looking for a house or even thought about it, you’ve probably been to websites that show listings in your area. You can see a few photos, check out the walking score for the neighborhood, and book a showing with the real estate agent on the listing.
But what if the house you’re looking for is too far away for you to take that step?
Is it possible to get enough information to purchase the home you want responsibly and without regret?
The answer is, with the right tools, a resounding “yes”!
Do listing photos matter? When it comes to selling your property the answer is a resounding yes. In the past one of the biggest selling points of any property was its curb appeal, because of that first impression made when a prospective buyer would view a property. Nowadays, that first viewing doesn’t come when the buyer approaches the physical property — it happens when they view a listing online.
We’ve seen this replicated in numerous studies of the property market which show that listings with professional quality listing photos sell faster, and often for higher sums, than those without. With studies showing that professional photography can cause a listing to sell around 50% faster. And as prospective buyers put more and more stock into their online property searches, it’s reasonable to expect this to continue.
Why is this the case? Read on to find out, and to gain a better understanding of just how and why you can use professional-quality listing photos to your advantage.
‘All The World’s A Stage’ — and your home should be the grandest of them all, especially if your audience is prospective buyers. Staging is vitally important because those in-person impressions will be what ultimately sways a buyer. Your home may look good in photos, and sound good on paper, but if the reality doesn’t match up with expectations buyers may very well look elsewhere.
Imagine a job interview: you dress to impress, you prepare the right answers, and you go out of your way to win over your hopeful future employers. Think of staging as preparing your home for its very own job interview! With that in mind, here are our top tips for how you can stage your home and win over prospective buyers.
When it comes to selling your home, having a clean and tidy space can really make all the difference. Selling is all about making a positive impression, and whether consciously or unconsciously, an untidy or cluttered property may influence buyers negatively. It doesn’t take much, often it’s just a few small things and a matter of being thorough with your cleaning, and you’ll have your home dressed to impress. Below we’ve offered our own handy guide to the steps you should be taking in order to clean and declutter your home.
Homeowners typically don't think about being a first-time home seller until they decide to buy a new home. Whe the need to move arises because of work, a growing family, or other situations, most of the focus is usually on buying a new house.
But when you stop to think about it, as soon as you need to sell in order to buy a new home, you've become a first-time home seller. Plus, most first-time homeowners don't realize how different selling a home is from buying a home. The process can be daunting and complicated, especially if you don't have a real estate agent on board right from the start.
To help you get a better idea of what to expect, and as a partner to our first-time home buyers guide, we've collected a series of steps and tips that will hopefully make the process of selling your home a little easier.
It's the right season, you've gotten a real estate agent, you've added some value to your home and you're ready to go and host some open houses! But hold on — while open houses are a great tool for showcasing properties, there are some standard steps to follow to make sure that your property is looking its best... and that your belongings remain secure.
In this post I'll be going over a checklist of items that most homeowners will want to follow before hosting an open house. Work together with your real estate agent to complete them and you should have a fantastic event.
