What Puts Buyers Off a House?
For many people, when it comes to looking for a home to purchase, we use our own experiences, style tastes and possible the input from a friend or loved one to judge whether a prospective home is a legitimist contender. When it comes to selling our home, we use the same lens to prepare our home for potential buyers.
Unfortunately, your personal taste and needs may not meet those of a boarder audience. We reviewed studies, spoke with real estate agents, and professional home staging consultants so we can put together a list of some of the most common and easy to fix turns offs for potential buyers.
1. Bad First Impression
The first impression of your home is extremely important, a home with very little curb appeal sets the stage for an underwhelming interior experience. Even if the inside of your home is jaw droppingly gorgeous, chances are that the WOW factor will be lost if your exterior doesn’t match. The good news is it doesn’t take much to clean up the exterior of your home. Mow the lawn, trim back any overgrown trees and shrubs, lay down some mulch on your garden beds, and plant some flowers, potted flowers will do the trick as well. Don’t neglect the front entrance, use your garden hose or a pressure washer to wash away any dirt, debris and cobwebs. You will be surprised how much brighter and more inviting your home will look after investing a few dollars and a couple of hours into increasing its curb appeal.
2. Clutter
Once inside the home, ensuring you convey an open, free flowing environment is extremely important. Having a cluttered home portrays an image of an unkept home and/or a home with insufficient storage. Both of which are big turn offs for potential buyers. These individuals are walking around your home and trying to picture their future there. If that future looks cluttered and stressful, chances are they will not be putting in an offer. You do not need to throw away all your items, but when you are ready to open your house to buyers, it may be a good idea to store boxes of unneeded items in a friend’s garage or in a storage unit.
Along the same lines of clutter, having a dirty home and more specifically kitchen and bathrooms is a huge turnoff. The reason being that the kitchen and bathrooms are some of the most personal spaces in a home, and if they do not meet the personal cleanliness standards of a potential buyer, they will not be able to envision spending quality time with friends and family in that space. There is a high likelihood that you will still be living in your home while trying to sell it, take some time prior to each open house to give your home a cleaning once over. If you don’t have the attention to detail or time to thoroughly clean your home, look into hiring a cleaning service for a bi-weekly deep clean.
3. Bright Colours
Repaint the rooms that were painted to meet your personal style. You enjoyed your yellow kitchen and sky-blue bedroom but not all potential home buyers will share your same appreciation for colour. Versatile, neutral colour tones are best for selling a home. Stay away from stark-white, choose warmer neutral colours such as light gray or eggshell to help make your home look brighter and the rooms larger. Don’t forget to repaint your white trim, this will cover up and nicks and scratches giving your home a fresh look and feel.
4. Odours
Potential home buyers are utilizing all of their senses when visualizing what their future will look like if they purchase your home. They are visually looking for any hindrances and deal breakers, they are listening for outside noise from neighbours or vehicles, they are touching countertops and railings, but one of the biggest buyer turn offs is a disconcerting smell. Bad smells can come from any number of undesirable items, mold, rot, dead animals and the list goes on. If you have an unsavoury smell coming from your home, find the smells outlet and have it fixed asap. On the flip side inviting smells can have a lasting impression, that why you hear of some real estate agent and home owner baking a fresh batch of cookies prior to an open house.
When preparing your home for sale, it is always a good idea to have your real estate agent walk through your home and point out any potential turns offs for buyers. Your agent has experience with preparing homes for quick sales and ensuring key selling points are highlighted, they also have an understanding of what may be a turn off and will help you resolve and overcome these issues.
