Furnishing and dressing a property before sale

Should I Furnish and Dress My Property Before Selling?

When you’re preparing to sell your home, there are a few different areas that you need to think about. In an ideal world, any actions that you take should result in your property being sold for the best price possible. To make sure that this happens, there are a few different enhancements and tweaks that you can consider before putting your property on the market.

One of these potential enhancements involves considering whether or not you should furnish and dress your property before selling it. In this article, we’re going to be sharing our expertise and insight with you to enable you to make the decision that best matches your situation.

Before we begin, if you would like to receive a tailored offer for your home, you can reach out to the team at LDN Properties for a hassle-free offer today. Alternatively, there is plenty of information regarding our buying process over in our Knowledge Base.

Furnishing a Property to Your Advantage

When you know that you’re going to be selling a house, every decision that you make needs to be made with the overall value of your property in mind. Does what you’re doing improve the value of your property? Will it attract more potential buyers and make your property sell faster?

We believe that furnishing your property before you sell it can work wonders when you are looking to make a quick sale. It has an impact for a couple of different reasons:

Potential buyers will be able to see how much space they have to play with

When a house is furnished, it becomes much easier for potential buyers to envision how they will be able to interact with the space around them. Instead of viewing an empty space, they’re viewing a property that already has items of furniture in it. In doing this, they will be able to see how big those items are and imagine how their furniture will look.

This can make a house much more attractive from the perspective of the buyer. They will be able to see in an instant what will and won’t work for them. If a house isn’t furnished, a potential buyer might not be able to work out whether or not the space that they’re looking at is big enough to suit their needs.

A homely atmosphere can be relaxing

When people go to view a property, they will often spend more time in properties that have been dressed. We believe that this is partially because furnished properties create a homely atmosphere. In dressing a property for a sale, you’re helping to create a natural environment in which people will feel comfortable in.

Open-plan spaces are much more aesthetically appealing when furnished

Open-plan spaces can be a nightmare to work with when they’re empty, especially from a sales perspective. As a seller, you have to remember that spatial awareness really doesn’t come naturally for most people. What looks like a large space to you might look much smaller to the next person.

When you’re selling a property that heavily relies on an open-plan layout, it will be difficult for potential buyers to imagine how the space will work without some furniture in there. This is even translated in photographs of the property, with many unfurnished open-plan spaces looking much smaller than they actually are.

An empty room doesn’t have the natural charm of a furnished space

Character will always speak louder than words. We can all be charmed by character, but not very many of us would be charmed by an empty box unless it offered an incredible view and an amazing location. By adding a few special touches when dressing your property, you can allow potential buyers to lose themselves to the details. Even things like cushions that complement the colour scheme can add an extra layer.

More people will view your property

As we are sure you can imagine, photographs of furnished properties almost always look better than photographs of unfurnished properties. When the photographs of your property are aesthetically appealing, they are more likely to stand out from the crowd and more people will want to come and look around.

If more people come to look around, your property will be more likely to sell quickly. In this way, dressing your property creates a win-win situation.

Setting a Scene

When you’re dressing a property to sell it, we would recommend creating a scene that your potential buyers will fall in love with. Most people can’t enter an empty room and imagine their household items in there. You need to set the stage and show them how to use it, rather than making them use their imaginations and creativity.

Once the scene has been set, photographs of your property will perform better than the unfurnished photographs would have. By ensuring that you keep everything simple and well-presented, you will find that your potential buyers are able to picture their own furniture in place of yours.

Right now, some sellers are even including furniture packages with their properties. These function as rental packages, enabling buyers to either purchase new furniture or move their own furniture in at their own pace. This can make things easier as a seller if you are planning on targeting potential buyers who are buying their first home.

Remember, your property has to make a good first impression. If it can do that, it’s the property that potential buyers will remember. Selling a piece of art is easier than selling an empty shell.

The Financial Side

As we are sure you can imagine, dressing a property can end up costing quite a bit of money. Is it really worth it? We would like to believe so, especially if you are looking for a fast sale. Remember, some properties will always be easier to sell than others regardless of whether or not they’re furnished so we would also recommend looking at the market as a whole.

When you’re selling a dressed property, you can usually expect a slightly higher profit margin and a faster turnaround time. Your efforts will make someone fall in love with your property, as they see that other people have already loved it before them. You should also make sure that your property is clean, tidy and in a good state of repair.

If you don’t want to put any money into your property and you want to sell it quickly, one of our experts would be happy to discuss an offer with you today. We will factor in any work that you have done to your property. We can also suggest other methods that you can use to enhance your property value.