Continental Shift

You’ve started to take steps to roll up your old life, and your first decision was to sell your home.

Treaty house, New Zealand

Here are some tips for selling, from here, to help you with selling your home:

• Maximise the first impression
  Make sure the front of your house presents well. This includes weeding and trimming the garden, sweeping up and removing cobwebs, and replacing the doormat
• Make sure the house is clean and free of clutter
  Clean and tidy spaces (including the windows) make a positive impression, while clutter can make a house seem small and disorganised
• Use furniture to define a lifestyle
  Space is so important that you might be tempted to move everything out of the house before showing it – however, having some furniture in each room helps define its use and sell a lifestyle to the potential buyer. If you’re worried, move out your large furniture, and borrow and hire smaller, but matched, items which suit the space better
• Fix all visible problems
  Things like dripping taps, cracked tiles or burnt-out light bulbs are minor and easily repaired, but they easily put off potential buyers because it makes them wonder what major problems the house is hiding (and if you know of any major problems, don’t hide them – disclose or fix)
• Re-paint to quickly give a house a facelift
  Make sure you choose neutral colours that allow potential buyers to imagine themselves as the owner – bright or trendy colours can turn people off because they can’t see themselves living with that
• Remove personal objects
  As with colours, you want to give the potential buyers a chance to imagine the house as theirs, and things they can’t identify with (like religious icons, political slogans, or obscure hobby relics) spoil the illusion. This may seem illogical, but house-buying is generally an emotional decision and you want to prompt the right emotions
• Keep pets under strict control
  You may wish to palm them off on a friend or family member during the inspection period. Also make sure you remove all evidence (especially the smell) of them
• Try accessories to increase the house’s attractiveness
  These can include plants and fresh flowers for life and fragrance, mirrors for light and space, and matching colours for unity
• Provide a pack for the potential buyers
  This should give information about the history of the home and any improvements you have made, and be an easy way for buyers to remember what they liked about your house.

Similar considerations may apply to renting, depending on the current state of the rental market in your home town. Just as you want to attract buyers, you want to attract reliable tenants.

A good sale or rental agent will be able to help you with this process; if you chose to go it alone, make sure you allocate enough time to it, and have reliable friends or family helping out.

How to move overseas. That’s it for this week. Next week, I’ll continue this section with more decisions you’ll need to make as you finalise your arrangements in your home country.

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