House flipping is a fantastic and often incredibly lucrative hobby. There’s nothing like the feeling of taking a real fixer-upper and turning into the kind of beautiful residence a new family would love to call their home. However, one of the biggest slowdowns to your quick-turnover plans is when a house sits for too long on the market. Maybe you have prospective buyers taking tours but if no one’s picked it up yet, it’s time to do a little presentation assessment. You need a combination of beautiful interior photos on your listings and an equally appealing first impression for in-person tours. Here are a few helpful tips on increasing the charm and enhancing the home’s best qualities.
The Almost-Lived-In Effect
When people are looking for a new home, they are constantly trying to imagine what it might be like to live in each property. The harder a time they have seeing themselves in a home, the less likely they are to buy. Imagination is best helped with a few small props, so your best bet is to very lightly decorate a home with the impression that a loving family just left the property which is lonely for a new family to move in.
1) Tidy the Exterior
While focusing on renovating the interior, it can be easy to forget things like the fences, siding, yard, and front walk. Remember that when you schedule tours, the front yard is the first thing new potential buyers see, and their opinion of the entire property is colored by this. Old fences can be repainted and sagging porch steps can be easily freshened up and reinforced with a few new boards. It’s also probably worth your while to hire a professional landscaping service for a few hours to spruce up the yard and make it look as if the home has been owned by a loving gardener instead of an enthusiastic flipper.
2) Welcoming Windows
Unconsciously all people judge a home by the appearance of its windows. Vacant, uncovered windows give the impression of an unloved and unlived in home. It makes people wonder what’s wrong with a place that people moved out so thoroughly. One of the most commonly left behind items are curtains, which also help to enhance the space and appeal of each room. You can significantly improve the appearance and beauty of a home by taking down dingy mini blinds and putting up a few hand-picked but inexpensive curtains. Even if new buyers take them down again, it will help them imagine how they might decorate instead of thinking about the home standing empty.
3) Background Items
Some things in a home fall into the background, almost completely forgotten, but it nags at the mind when they’re not there. When your goal is to make the home appealing, a few knickknacks ‘left behind’ create a cozy sensation. Simple things like oven pads hanging in the kitchen, hand towels, toilet rolls, and welcome mats make a big difference. On the opposite side of this, make sure to clean up any signs of work like paint rollers or unused floor tiles, as these highlight that the home has been recently changed. Even if they know about the renovation, it doesn’t help your sale to leave these items lying around.
4) Vanilla
The secret ingredient to any home sale is a wonderful smell. Choosing a home to buy is a major emotional decision, and with that in mind consider how many emotional decisions are made with your nose. Whether a restaurant is good, or a neighborhood is enjoyable are strongly influenced by the scent of the food or the local plant life. A little vanilla spritzed around the rooms before a scheduled tour may be obvious, but it still has a powerful effect.
Center Street Lending specializes in short term loans, so we’ve worked with a lot of flippers just like you. For more interesting tips on how to sell your flip, contact us today!
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