If you’re about to embark on the process of selling your home, then taking the time to depersonalise it is a must – so what should stay and what needs to go?
The end goal for just about anyone selling property is to do so quickly, and for the best possible price. Although the vision sounds relatively straightforward, most people tend to diverge on what the best practices are for doing so.
As a general rule, property styling is an important aspect of successfully selling a home. Effective property styling is always neutral, and actually removes any trace of your own taste and style in order to avoid distracting potential home buyers. For those who opt to forgo the help of a professional, taking the time to depersonalise a property before selling is one of the key fundamentals of the practice – but what does it actually involve?
Five Ways To Effectively Depersonalise A Property
The end goal of property styling is to highlight your home’s unique features and potential, whilst diverting attention away from the flaws and shortcomings. It also allows for top notch property photography, which goes a long way in ensuring that your home stands out online to not only drive inspections, but helps to generate formal offers to buy.
Professional property styling harnesses basic real estate psychology, as factors such as emotions, logic and even our imagination all play a part in driving a buyer to make an offer on a property or not. A potential buyer truly needs to envision themselves living in your home, and even investors want to be able to view a property as a blank canvas without the clutter of a previous resident.
As such, depersonalising is an important part of preparing your home for those important online listing photos, open home inspections, and ideally the following offers to buy. While the task can be emotional and even stressful, knowing where to get started is key.
Remove Family Photos – This depersonalisation process is often regarded as one of the more difficult parts of selling property, particularly if the dwelling has been your family home. Like it or not, potential buyers will have their minds clouded if your face is staring down at them from the walls, so be sure to remove any evidence of your history within the home.
Start Packing Personal Items – Almost every real estate agent will advise a seller to declutter, and this process should start from the minute you’ve decided to make the move. In addition, packing up any excess personal items will create more space in the property, particularly with areas that involve open shelving or storage such as bookcases.
Extract Evidence Of Hobbies – While they may form integral parts of your day to day life, removing all traces of your hobbies is a must when it comes to depersonalising a home and ensuring it’s ready to sell. This can include anything and everything from an exercise bike, sewing machine, electric guitar and even children’s toys.
Address Subjective Controversy – What you find tasteful, funny, or even a display of your faith may cause shock and disapproval in others, which is a strong reason to be put off from buying a house. As such, be sure to remove any potentially offensive items that are currently present in your home, such as nude artwork, religious items, or anything with rude language.
Decorate With Neutrals – Ultimately, the process of depersonalising your home is about doing your best to ensure that the property appeals to a wide range of demographics, and therefore potential buyers. While you can still decorate with a splash of colour, aim to use furnishings and paint that uses whites and greys instead of louder, more subjective palettes.
Should you be looking to sell your home or purchase a new one, enlisting the services of a free property advisor like ESPA can often be a game changer. As an example, your advisor would likely research the property, local agents, check the zoning, evaluate market conditions, and communicate clearly with you regarding all of your options – but where do you find one?
Take The Stress Out Of Selling Property
As a completely free service, Emergency Services Property Advisors provide property advisor services to Police, Fire, Ambulance and S.E.S personnel and their families right across Victoria.
Luke and the team at ESPA are passionate about providing support to some of Australia’s most valued public servants. Along with key industry insights, ESPA also works with a broad range of service providers linked to the real estate industry such as conveyancers, trades, legal practitioners and mortgage brokers.
If you are an emergency services worker looking to potentially buy or sell property in the future, please get in touch with Emergency Services Property Advisors today to discuss how we can turn your real estate dreams into reality, or call Luke directly on 0414 757 705.