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When it comes to selling a property - Kerb Appeal is King

April 25, 2011

Despite how well maintained your home may be once over the threshold, it takes potential buyers less than 8 seconds to decide whether they like your house or not.  During my recent house hunt, I was instantly put off the property I was viewing simply by the state of next-door’s garden. Whilst the old adage is never judge a book by its cover, this is certainly not the case when it comes to house buying and we are all prone to it. Colloquially known as kerb appeal, potential buyers will within those 8 golden seconds be influenced by their new environment and what they see, hear and smell. 

Now, put yourself in the seller’s shoes… we have our home and we want to sell it. What can we do to improve its saleability? I appreciate that we cannot control all things round us, but our home’s saleability can be improved by:-

1. Painting your front door. It sounds simple but this is the first thing that people are going to look at. Go wild with colour, it's the one place you can. Strong, bright colours in full gloss are popular at the moment but if you haven't got the nerve, black is always a safe bet, or a flat, dark plum colour such as "Pelt"
2. Invest in quality door furniture. "Spend an extra £100 to get really good things. "Cheap generally looks cheap." Try to choose furniture in keeping with your property; heavy Victoriana door knockers and letter boxes will look ridiculous unless your home is Victorian.
3. Lighting is vital, placed either side of the front door to add symmetry, or a lantern in a portico entrance. Don't be afraid to try out lights in situ before you commit; if they're too big or too ornate they can look brash. If your property is approached via a garden, light it sensitively. "Good garden lighting is unseen,"
4. The approach to the front door (steps, a path and/or a driveway), should be swept of leaves, and free from rubbish. Cars and bicycles be neatly parked.
5.  Numbering or naming a house can easily go wrong. Wonky numerals, badly painted names, or plaques with pictures (such as birds, trees) do no justice to the front of a house.
6. Windows look sad when they are dirty, so make sure yours are cleaned regularly. Rotten window frames are also unacceptable and if you're putting in new ones, make sure they are appropriate with the design of the rest of the house.
7. However small the space is, add some greenery. You don't need a big garden to plant a creeper, and houses look beautiful with plants trailing up them. And you can easily make window boxes yourself. Just paint a plastic planter and plant it with some draping ivy. Landscaped beds with colourful planting and box hedges set off the front of a house; or for smaller spaces, such as either side of the front door, planters with box topiary. Remember though that some creepers are not good for brickwork as they can pull the mortar out of the pointing.
8. Spruce up a tired façade by repainting, re-pointing, or rendering over ugly brickwork. Don't go too crazy: paint colours should be more sensible than on the front door, and in keeping with the period of the house (and the ones either side, if you live on a street). This doesn't mean to say that they have to be the same colour (unless you are in a heritage area).
9. Don't let the house next door ruin your kerb appeal. If your neighbours have rubbish outside their house, suggest you remove it, rather than whinging about it. And if you're trimming your hedge, ask if you can do theirs while you're at it – 10 minutes mowing, or rubbish collecting is worth the effort." Try to conceal their rubbish bins (and yours) behind a hedge or a small fence. If you have to have them on show, make sure they are clean and the lids are on.

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