If you’re living in Bishop’s Stortford and thinking of selling your home this spring, you may have started thinking about ‘selling prep’. This is a term used by lots of estate agents in Bishop’s Stortford and it refers to getting your home ship-shape and ready to sell.
You might have been considering giving the garden a facelift, maybe even putting in an extension or a new bathroom or kitchen. There are so many options when it comes to adding as much value as possible to your home (read our post “How to add value and sell faster”) but believe it or not, adding a splash of colour makes a huge difference too.
Here are our top tips for using colour to really show off your home for sale:
Give your front door some love. Is your front door looking a bit shabby and in need of TLC? Giving it a fresh lick of paint not only makes your door happy but can drastically improve the look of the frontage of your property too. We find that blue, green and red are the best colours to go for if you want maximum impact.
Skirting board and ceiling touch-ups. I know as a colour link this seems tenuous but giving your skirting boards and ceilings a fresh lick of white paint can have a surprising effect on the neat appearance of a room. We often neglect to pay attention to these areas but remember – buyers look EVERYWHERE.
Small space? No worries! If you don’t live in an 8 bedroom mansion it can be hard to create the illusion of space, especially with all your bits and pieces floating about. Our top tip for cosy-sized homes is to keep your colour scheme light and bright. Magnolia, pale duck egg blue, salmon pinks and even pale greens and greys are all great if you’re keeping up with interior trends. Banishing dark paint will illuminate your rooms and make them look bigger.
It’s not all about paint. Adding colour doesn’t have to be about getting the paintbrush out. Adding contemporary wallpaper as a feature in a dining room or bedroom is on trend and is a slightly less messy way to give your rooms some personality on the cheap.
Colourful furnishings. This is probably one of the cheapest ways to impress your buyers subliminally when they come to view your home, particularly if you live in a new build property. New-build tend to be decorated as a very blank canvas to appeal to as many people as possible, but this can come across as bland. So to push past the plain look, accessorise with bright scatter cushions, feature ornaments, bright flowers and lampshades to give your rooms a pick-me-up. Places like Dunelm are great for buying cost effective home furnishings.
It can be hard to know when to stop when it comes to preparing your home, so it’s best to ask a friend to help you focus on between 1 and 3 rooms that need attention the most.
Adding a splash of colour can make you, and your potential buyers, feel happy even on a down day so try out some of these techniques and let us know how you get on! We’d love you to tweet us some pictures of your colour experiments to @PPropertyShop.
What to read next? ‘Why can’t I just sell my home myself?’