Preparing To Sell Your Home: How To Get The Best Price

 

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If you’re currently looking to move property, your thoughts will be dominated by the excitement of finding a dream home. Before you can make that purchase, though, it’s vital that you sell the current house at the best price.

The sale of the current property will influence how much you can put down on your future purchase. Furthermore, starting the next chapter will be delayed until you have found a buyer. Meanwhile, the financial impacts could have a potential impact on your life for many years to come. 

Here are five key steps that can boost your hopes of a fast and fairly priced sale. 

Fix Faults Around The Home

When prospective buyers look at the home, each fault they spot is another job that they need to do. Unless they are actively looking for a fixer-upper, this is likely to turn them away. As a seller, those small problems may lead to reduced audience size and value.

In many cases, you can find DIY tutorials to fix minor faults with the plumbing or walls. However, even if you need to hire an expert, it is likely that the small expense will be rewarded with a bigger sale price. The property will be more enjoyable to live in between now and your moving date too.

Take a few weeks to prepare your home in this way, and it’ll work wonders for your sale.

Make The Home Appear Bigger

Prospective buyers often aren’t overly fussed about your decor choices. After all, they will almost certainly make changes to their tastes. What they will look for, however, is space. Any opportunity to make the home feel larger should be grabbed with both hands.

This is an ideal time to declutter as it’ll also save you from taking unnecessary products to the new home. When combined with this guide to keeping your property clean, you will find that the property carries a greater appeal. Simple ideas like dressing the windows to embrace increased natural lighting can have a positive influence too. Not least because it creates an inviting vibe that buyers and investors love. 

Using wall-mounted items instead of bulky units may aid the cause too.

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Work With A Dedicated Team

Successful marketing strategies are needed for selling any asset. Your home shouldn’t be any different, especially because it is a hugely valuable asset. If you cannot get the property seen by the right people, you will not gain viewings or subsequent offers that you deserve.

While it may be tempting to promote the property yourself, it requires a lot of time and effort. Meanwhile, you won’t have the contacts or marketing experience. Listing your home through an experienced agent that specializes in your location or property type is advised. They will promote the USPs, get your property seen by the right buyers, and save you valuable time in the process. They can also know whether to target investors or families. 

It should bring a fair sale price as you’ll gain a professional valuation and market advice.

Add Some Curb Appeal

First impressions count for a lot in this world, particularly for homebuyers. While most people will look at online listings first, there is nothing quite like seeing the property for real. As a seller, you should know that the external features will set the tone and influence the buyer.

Improving the front of your property can make it stand out from the neighboring properties. This ability to immediately impress buyers can encourage them to consider life inside the property. This is before they’ve even looked at living spaces. From resurfacing the driveway to painting the siding, quick jobs can give your house the wow factor it deserves.

Crucially, it can bump up the value of the property by a significant figure.

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Define Each Room

On the one hand, you will benefit from depersonalizing the home and using neutral colors. However, this should not mean that the home becomes one big blur. You must give each living space and understand exactly what buyers want from a home.

Buyers perceive bedrooms to be worth more than offices and dining rooms to be more valuable than playrooms. Not least because they could create an office via an outside building. Crucially, though, each room should have a clear function. When rooms double up as two things, it can make the property seem too small or unfit for purpose. This is the last thing that you need.

When the function of each room is clear, it should be easier to gain a sale.

3 Simple Ways To Keep Your Home Clean

 

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Keeping your home clean is a necessity if you want to take pride in it. No matter what you do, it could seem like an endless mess, however. You’ll need to know how to keep your home clean properly if you want to avoid it being a hassle. It doesn’t need to take as much effort as you might think.

Using a few simple strategies makes it much easier than you’d expect. Three specific strategies are helpful with this. If you want to make cleaning your home much easier, it’s worth diving into what they are.

How To Keep Your Home Clean: 3 Simple Strategies

1. Use The Right Products

You’ll already know you’ll need cleaning products to get your cleaning done. That doesn’t mean grabbing the first option you see on the shelf. You’ll have to make sure you choose the right ones, as some can be more effective than you’d think. Experimenting with different options can be recommended.

You should also try options that are commonly recommended, such as Encore Coatings. These can cut through tough stains relatively easily, so you’ll spend less time getting through it. You could be surprised by how much less time cleaning will take once you have the right products.

2. Clean Things After Using Them

One of the bigger reasons people hate cleaning is because there’s often a lot of it to do. That’s mainly because people let things build up until it seems impossible to get through. Thankfully, there’s a relatively easy way to get around this.

By cleaning things as you go, you make sure you’re not in for an insurmountable heap when you finally get around to cleaning. The larger the mess is, the more of a pain and hassle it’ll seem. That can cause some more procrastination, letting the mess get bigger.

By cleaning something right after using it, you make sure that doesn’t happen.

3. Keep Shoes At The Door

Shoes bring in a lot of dirt and other messes when you come in through the front door. Naturally, that leads to you needing to do some more cleaning, but avoiding this is quite easy. Simply leave your shoes at the door when you walk inside.

Having a dedicated area for this makes sure you don’t track any dirt around the home. While you’ll still need to clean this place relatively regularly, it’ll be much less effort than needing to clean the floors every time you walk through the door.

How To Keep Your Home Clean: Wrapping Up

If you don’t know how to keep your home clean properly, it could often take more time and effort than you’d want. To minimize that, it’s worth using a few simple strategies to take as much effort out of it as possible.

Using the right cleaning tools, keeping shoes at the door, and cleaning anything after using them will all help with this. They’ll cut out a lot of the cleaning you need to do, so there’s no reason not to use them.

Looking for Ways to Maintain Your Property Interior: Start With These 4 Tips'

 

When it comes to property maintenance, interior upkeep is often overlooked. Many homeowners think that if the exterior of their home looks good, the inside must also be in good shape. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. Just like your car needs an oil change and your lawn needs to be mowed, your property's interior needs attention too! This blog post will discuss four tips for maintaining your property's interior.

Photo by Ron Lach : 

Start by creating a realistic cleaning schedule:

Make sure you allocate enough time to clean your property regularly. This could include daily, weekly, and monthly tasks such as vacuuming, dusting and mopping floors. Also, consider deeper cleaning tasks like shampooing carpets or scrubbing tile grout that should be done at least once every six months. You can also consider hiring a professional cleaner to come in and do these deep cleaning tasks. If you’re pressed for time, it may be worth the investment.

Don't forget about air quality:

In addition to ensuring your property is physically clean, you should also focus on improving the air quality inside your home. This can be done through various strategies, such as using an air purifier to remove allergens and pollutants from the air or investing in high-quality filters for your HVAC system.

You should also be conscious about the cleaning products you use inside your home, as some may contain harsh chemicals that can further aggravate respiratory sensitivities. Where possible, look for natural alternatives to traditional cleaners to reduce any potential harm to the air quality. Additionally, if you have hardwood floors or carpets, regular steam cleaning can help minimize dust and other airborne particles without exposing yourself and your family members to hazardous substances.

Use the right cleaning materials:

The right cleaning materials can make all the difference in maintaining your property interior. When looking for an effective yet gentle way to clean hard surfaces, such as wood or ceramic tile floors, consider using specialty cleaners explicitly designed for those materials. For instance, steam mops are excellent at removing dirt and grime from tile floors without damaging them. And if you have a wood floor, make sure to use cleaning products that won’t strip away its protective finish. If you don’t know which type of product to use on a particular surface, ask your local hardware store for recommendations.

Don't forget about fabric:

Your property’s interior isn’t just about hard surfaces. It also includes furniture, curtains, carpets, and other fabrics that can be damaged or stained if not cared for properly. To keep fabric looking its best, it’s important to clean them regularly and ensure they are vacuumed at least once a week. Additionally, spills should be blotted up as soon as possible, so they don’t get absorbed into the material. Hiring professional carpet cleaning services is also recommended, as they have the right tools and expertise to deep clean carpets and other materials without causing damage. Finally, if you’re going to be using a fabric protector, make sure it’s one that is specifically designed for the type of material you are using.

Maintaining your property’s interior doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. By following these four tips, you can ensure that your property looks great and stays in good condition for years to come.

What to buy someone who loves to cook'

 

Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-sliced-vegetable-2284166/ 

We’ve all got that friend who loves to bake or cook and don’t we just love them? There is nothing more fun than heading around theirs after a busy day at work to have something delicious cooked for you. 

Being a cooking or baking enthusiast makes it easy to buy presents for. There are so many cool gadgets and toys that can make a cook's life a lot more easier in the kitchen. You can buy them a set of glasses, some coasters, a new recipe book - this gluten-free eggless chocolate chip cookie recipe is delicious - a gadget like a bottle opener or you could simply settle with a bottle of alcohol free rum or wine as a get out of jail card. 

To help you with buying a present for that friend who loves to cook, take a look through our guide below. 

Set of candles 

If you enjoy cooking then sitting down and enjoying your meal is part of the parcel. This is a great chance to light a candle whilst enjoying your meal - also perfect for date night or when you have guests around. Why not buy a set of candles that they can use after they have spent a long time in the kitchen? If your budget allows for it you can buy a candle subscription where they will receive one or two candles each month for them to discover. Candles are great as they can also be used in other rooms like their bedroom or bathroom. 

Kitchen accessory 

When you are unsure what to buy your friend who loves to cook, turn to kitchen accessories. You can never go wrong with an accessory, partly because there are so many of them. You could buy a bottle opener, a champagne stopper, a tin opener, new knives, a cheese board, salt and pepper set, the possibilities are endless. Before deciding what to buy, check you are not already buying them something they already have or have multiple of. Bottle openers for example, people tend to have a couple so you don’t want your present wasted. 

A set of coasters

If they enjoy cooking, then chances are they will enjoy hosting others or simply relaxing with a glass of wine after a hard day at work. Coasters come in perfectly for this! You can get a whole plethora of coasters designed to what they love on tv, to do at work, interiors and more. They are affordable and coasters can be used in any room meaning they won’t get left in a dusty cupboard to never be used again. 

A set of glasses 

What is the purpose of coasters? To place your drinking glasses on. Why not buy your friend who enjoys cooking a new set of glasses for them to drink from? There are many different shapes and styles of glasses that are designed for the drink you like drinking. If they are into their cocktails, then you could match the glasses to the cocktails they regularly drink. If you are unsure if they have a set of glasses or not, simply invite yourself around and pretend to make yourself a glass of water so that you can inspect the glasses they have. 

A new recipe book 

Do they have a favorite chef or baker that they follow? Or do they enjoy trying to cook new things when they have you over? A new recipe book is ideal for anyone who enjoys cooking or baking. It gives them a chance to try something new and to discover new cooks as you may pick a book that they have never heard of before. If you know they like a certain cuisine, try and match the book to the cruising they enjoy cooking. Alternatively, if they have a recipe they like to cook, see if you can find a chef that does the same but in a different style for them to try out. Sometimes cooking isn’t as difficult as you may think, you could borrow the book and give some of the recipes a go once you know they are done with it. 

We hope the above five suggestions give you some inspiration for present ideas for your friend or family member who loves to cook. If they are not right, keep on looking as there are plenty of other things that we could have included in our list. What suggestions do you have for someone who loves to cook? Which of the above five suggestions is your favorite? Is there anything you would like to share that will benefit our readers? Let us know in the comment box below