Every home is sellable. What changes is the price.
Take two identical houses right next to each other on the same street.
Why would one get a higher price?
Assuming that they were built at the same time by the same builder, they would have been the same when they were originally completed.
So what changed?
Use your imagination.
The owner of one unit is a young professional couple without children who have super modern furniture and are particularly neat and tidy in the way that they live.
The other home was bought by an elderly couple who have heavy dark old-fashioned furniture.
They are not particularly house proud and have two long-haired dogs that shed a lot of hair.
Both husband and wife smoke heavily.
Which one would you want to buy?
The garden of the one house is well maintained – lovely flower beds tastefully laid out, with lots of flowering plants.
The trees are trimmed and all the beds are neat and turned over.
Wild trees are removed and all the leaves, grass cuttings and dead branches are taken away on a monthly basis.
The property has full sprinklers back and front and are regularly fertilised.
The lawn is cut weekly and well weeded.
The other home has owners who are more interested in TV games and having people over to visit than looking after the garden.
The lawn is cut weekly but not always trimmed on the edges.
Not being that interested in gardening the flower beds have quite a few weeds and wild trees growing but do get looked at from time to time.
This owner does not go to buy flowering plants so what is there is there.
They put in perennial plants that need little to no attention.
Which home do you think you would want to buy?
One house has a proud owner that makes sure that everything is well looked after and in its place.
The other one has had a series of tenants over many years.
The owner is trying to maximise his income and not spend money on repairs that can be done some other time.
Which home are you likely to buy?
That is why some houses sell quicker and for more money than others.
If you are thinking of selling then you need to think like a buyer.
Look at your own home and see what you can do to make it more attractive to a buyer.
Buyers will buy any home no matter how dirty or untidy it is provided it is being sold at the right price.
The more dirty, old fashioned, dark and unkempt it is, the lower the buying price will be.
Just spending a couple of thousand rand on improving a house’s garden can increase the price that a buyer will pay by tens of thousands of rand.
Ask your selling agent to walk around your house and tell you what he or she would like to see done to make your home more sellable.
Just having a simple spring clean and cupboard clear-out can add to your home’s saleability and make your home sell quicker.
- Mike Spencer is the founder and owner of Platinum Global. He is also a professional associated property valuer and consultant with work across the country as well as Eastern Europe and Australia.