How to Maintain your Home for Open for Inspections
Your estate agent will have provided a schedule for home opens for inspection and depending on their approach you need to be prepared for some occasional appointment based home opens that may meet the needs of that perfect buyer.
Keeping your home in a ‘staged’ state may be difficult especially while you are living there.
Our advice is to:
Take A Few Snaps
Take a few snaps on your phone of each room so you remember how the lounges are presented, the beds are styled and tables laid out. This will also help you delegate to other family members in the weeks ahead. Getting help from and involving the family in your Home Open for Inspections will take a load off you.
Pack Away Non-Essential Items
Give the kids just one toy box with a few books and their favourite toys and activities in it and pack everything else away – despite their protestations they will survive and in fact be much happier when you are not nagging them to clean it all up before the next home open for inspections.
Swap Your Linens Over
Have one set for sleeping and one set for show so you never have to worry about the condition of the ones on show.
Get Help
Whether that’s a friend, your mum or someone you pay. Have a cleaner, like one of the clever Property Styling Melbourne’s Cleaners, come over the day before or morning of each home open to do a quick clean of floors, bathrooms, mirrors, a quick dust or more. Spend your time resetting the styling instead. Talk to a Property Styling Melbourne’s Property Stylist if you want to include this in your package.
Appeal to the Senses
Oil burners, incense, those reed diffusers or worse still those glade plug in or airwick timed things are almost always artificial fragrances (which by the way are really bad for you). Unless it’s a completely natural, soy candle or something like that the artificial, manufactured fragrances can be just as offensive as the ‘smells’ you are trying to cover up.
The absolute best thing you can do in the lead up to a home open is to air your home (open the windows and doors) for hours at a time if you can.
If you insist on using a fragrance check the ingredients and make sure its natural, stick to something really minimal and subtle because that Vanilla, Black Raspberry, Cinnamon, French Pear and Gardenia concoction ain’t going to appeal to everyone.
Or you could try making something yourself. Here is a recipe from Alexx Stuart of Low Tox Living.
Deal With the Doo Doo
Almost the worst thing on a home open is to have a pet at home or worse to have not cleaned up after their doo doo in the yard. Buyers will see and smell it a mile off. Even if you think it’s not obvious, trust me, it is!
Always do a final sweep of the yard, literally as you walk your pet out of the gate before the home open starts.
From there, its over to your Agent whether selling privately or by auction, you can relax knowing you’ve done the most you can to get the best possible result. You’ve probably made the agents job a little easier too!
