Preparing your Home for Sale – Soaking up a Sale

Cleanliness is Number One

Whatever condition your bathroom is in, it must be clean. Nothing puts buyers off like mildrew and a dirty loo! Clean your tiles and grouting, make sure your windows, mirrors and shower screens are spotless and free of streaks. Hairs in the drains are a real put off, so check this before your open your home to buyers. When you’re selling, replace your soap bars with liquid soap, there will be less mess to take care of.

That Smell Won’t Sell

It is a fact of life that bad smells can creep into your bathrooms. Nothing will put a buyer off faster than a bad smell, so make sure you air your bathrooms well, open the windows, use the extractor fan and add some potpourri or air freshner if needed….but don’t go over the top as buyers might think you are trying to hide something.

Fix the Fittings

Cracked basin, toilets or tubs give the impression the room is unhygienic, so consider replacing these. It is not that expensive provided you don’t change the plumbing.

Space Savers

If you have a small bathroom don’t clutter the limited wall space with towel rails, put them on the back of the door. If you are renovating a small bathroom, consider wall mounted sinks and toilets.

Use big mirrors to make the room appear twice the size, not only will they enhance the feeling of spaciousness, they are also very practical.

The bathroom will also seem less cluttered if you keep the colour scheme simple and light aswell as ensuring you have good storage to hide all those bits and pieces.

Buyers Will Lap Up Luxury

Today luxury spa bathrooms are very popular, but we don’t all have this look. You can however add a little luxury to any bathroom. Fresh plump towels, some handmade soaps, plant or fresh flowers and some boutique bath products set out in your bathroom will give that feeling of luxury.

A New Coat

Stained or chipped bathtubs and basins can be easily fixed by enamelling companies that can give your fitting a whole new look. They can even enamel old tiles, so if your bathroom’s colour scheme is straight out of the 1970’s this simple inexpensive process could save you sale. Add to this a fresh coat of paint on the walls and you have a whole new bathroom.

Sell inherited property

Looking for More Tips?

Let’s be honest – selling a home is never an easy task – it takes a bit work and a lot of patience. These are a few ideas to help you style your bathrooms when selling, but don’t forget the entire property needs to be looked at.

How to Sell Your Rental Property

What Owners Need to Know

Perhaps your rental property has had strong capital growth and you want to sell while the market’s at a peak. Alternatively, you may be moving to another city or state and want to sell up your rental properties and buy in a new area.

Whatever the reason for selling your rental property, there are some important things to consider if you’ve currently got tenants in the property. There are a number of factors when it comes to selling residential real estate, but you’ve got some very specific obligations if the property you own is currently tenanted.

Communication

It’s certainly not a smart move to blindside your tenants. Keep them in the loop if there are any changes that could alter their position.

Of course, if you’re just toying with the idea of selling your rental property, there’s no point alarming your tenants if you’re not going to act upon the idea for a year or two.

However, there will come a time when your desire to sell could conflict with your obligations. At this point, you’ll need to have a chat with your tenants.

Your Obligations

It’s necessary to check which kind of tenancy agreement you have, as this will affect what approach you can take with regards to selling your investment real estate.

For instance, if you’ve signed a fixed-term agreement with your tenants, you’ll have to let this period of the agreement run through – you can’t ask them to move out part way. You’ll need to rethink a quick sale if you’ve got this type of agreement!

By contrast, you have a bit more flexibility with relation to periodic tenancies. If you want your tenant to move out before you put your property up for sale and you have a period tenancy agreement in place, you’ll need to provide the appropriate notice in writing, which can differ from state to state.

Do I Sell With Tenants in the Property?

One big question landlords ask when they’re looking to sell their rental properties is whether they should host open inspections while the tenants are still living there or attempt to sell the property uninhabited.

If you go for the latter option, you have more flexibility with how you present the property, plus you won’t need to worry about tenants not keeping it tidy.

Another option is to host option inspections while you still have tenants in the property. This may be a good approach if your tenants are reasonably tidy and you trust that they’ll keep the property in good shape when prospective buyers are being shown around it.

Of course, you’ll need to give tenants appropriate notice of open inspections. If this is going to encroach on their everyday enjoyment of the property, it may be wise to offer a rental reduction.