Terri Ramsey Beavers Have you got a property on the market at the moment? How long has it been on the market, waiting for someone to take an interest? Are you starting to think you’re selling at the wrong time, or you used the wrong agency to help you sell your house? Or maybe you’re just thinking about putting your house up for sale? And you want to be sure you’re selling at the right time, for the right reasons, for the right amount of money?
Well, housing markets are different all around the world, and you’re going to have to get specific to your own to make sure you’re making an informed decision! There’s a lot that goes into selling a house, and if you’re not ruminating over the idea for a good while beforehand, there’s a good chance you’ll just rush into things.
But we can still help with that. If you’re on a quest to sell your house, sooner rather than later, you’ll need to know what your housing market is looking for. And to do that, you’ll need to look into the most common trends amongst buyers, and what the most valued home renovations are. And we’ve got a list mixing those two details together written down below for you; feel free to read on for more.
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Working Household Systems
One of the main things the housing market wants to know about your home is how well put together it is. If you have a house that’s breaking down, and seems beyond repair for the average homeowner’s budget, you’re only going to attract a select few buyers. And these buyers, namely house flippers who look for properties just like yours at a discounted price, are hard to find, and won’t pay you the return you’re looking for!
So, before you put your house up for sale, make sure you’re checking the systems that make your house a home. Things like the heating, and whether or not the ventilation works well enough. You’ll also want to check over the plumbing that runs through your house – services like mrrooter.ca/toronto could help you out here, seeing as water and pressure issues are quite hard to take care of all on your own.
At the same time, make sure you’ve done everything you can to keep the property up and running. Potential buyers will want to have a look around the place before they put down an offer for it, and if they see that the wiring in the walls is bust, because the lights don’t turn on, they’re not going to think too much of you!
The Right Curb Appeal
First impressions are everything, and when it comes to turning a good impression on the property you’re meaning to put up for sale, it’s the curb appeal that needs to come first. If your house doesn’t look good from the outside, there’s a good chance the buyer won’t believe it looks good on the inside.
Curb appeal can have a lot of definitions to it, seeing as we all like the look of different things on the exterior of our houses. What you might like a buyer might not like, which is why it’s important to try and go down the middle with your aesthetic choices here, especially if this is the first time you’ve ever sold a property.
There are quite a few common trends in the curb appeal market. Design elements such as a vintage theme, a landscaped garden, and a neatly patterned driveway are timeless; if you’re a big fan of being able to section out the front of your property into neatly designed areas and patterns, these will all be a big plus for you! But if you prefer something a little more wild or untraditional, a mix of plants and flowers, as well as shingles and stones instead of a pathway will work wonderfully too.
A Garage on the Side
Garages are one of the most valued home renovations or extensions you can add onto your home, especially if you can place more than one door on the room you build. To the modern buyer, a garage presents more options than ever before – it’s not just a place you can put the car at the end of the day. It’s an extra room for storage, or to be converted into an office or studio, or maybe a home gym that we all secretly want to own one day. And if a garage is big enough to have two doors to it, there’s a lot you can put in there.
If you already have a garage as part of the property you’re trying to sell, it might be time to get it renovated. You won’t have to add any serious extensions on to it, but you might want to change the wall color and the type of flooring you’ve already got in there. If it’s an otherwise cold and negative space, a bit of shade and tone, as well as something smooth to walk over and further build on, will go down a treat with any kind of prospective buyer.
Decking Out the Back
Next up is the garden. The housing market tends to love a garden with space and potential, as a lot of us like to landscape our own little slices of nature, and be able to put them to good use as an outside extension of our homes. Even a smaller garden, or just a cosy little sitting area, can show a lot of potential to a buyer, as long as you’ve set things up right.
And to do that, you might have to invest in decking. A bright wooden type, that’s perfectly laid and varnished, is the most popular type on the market. It shows off a sense of contemporary professionalism to anyone who likes a garden, and it’s one of the best ways to preserve the garden in its natural state for someone else to take on later. You’ll have set the soil and tilled it in a way, so it’ll be easy enough to pull the deck up if a buyer decides they want to get underneath it.
All in all, sometimes it’s better to lay out a deck than leave the garden alone, if only to prove someone interested in the place that they can fit such an upgrade out there!
A Shiny Kitchen Model
The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in the house, seeing as it’s where food is stored, prepared, and cooked. As human beings, we love to eat! And if your property doesn’t have a shiny enough kitchen to show off to anyone coming along to an open house event, you may not get enough prospective buyers. A shiny kitchen model draws attention, and allows someone viewing the place to see the room as a functioning, kept and clean space.
And that’s very important for the modern day and age – anyone who wants to use a kitchen will need to know it’s a working space, with a good traffic flow, and that it’s easy to wipe up at the end of the day. Even when you’ve got only a small kitchen to boast, fitting in a mini dishwasher at one end of the cupboards can really show off just how much the model is worth. It shows off the limited amount of wasted space within the room, especially if it’s of an irregular shape.
Put marble or granite tops on the counters, as well as shine down the wood of the cupboards, and aim for a neutral color scheme on top of things. Something like white or pebble in tone. Something a person could build on, if they wanted to. Those tiles acting as a backsplash should be plain and neutral too!
An Accessible Bathroom
The housing market has a lot of people within it, and they all have different wants and needs. And the bathroom is one of the most hotly contested rooms of a house – everyone has their own opinion on what the bathroom should look like, and how cozy or comfortable it should be to use. And that’s why you need to remodel or revamp it with accessibility in mind.
A ‘universal’ bathroom is worth a lot on the market at the moment. If you manage to include a bathroom in your property that has something for everyone, well, anyone would be interested in it. A sink that’s at a neutral enough height for everyone to be able to reach, and a plughole that’s easy to stopper, etc., are two of the most commonly sought after design elements here.
The housing market has a lot of wants and needs within it, and you never know who you’ll be able to target once you put your property out there. So always be sure to look into what people want the most, to try and make sure your house doesn’t sit around just gathering dust. You deserve every penny!