10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

10 Homebuyersturn offsand how homesellers can combat them

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10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

Getting started

Room 101 was a place so terrible that it was spoken of only in whispers… a place no one wanted to enter, let alone buy.

How can you avoid your home being a Room 101 for potential buyers? Over the next few pages we’re going to tackle common homebuyer turn-offs that you can.

We’ve asked the experts for their top ten pet property hates, as well as tips and tricks for solving them. Our panel of judges have then shortlisted these down to a top 10 list, whilst at the same time devising tips and tricks to help consign them to oblivion. So without further ado, let’s take a look at our nominated no-nos.

10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

The property

You only get one chance to make a first impression, so make sure that the garden is tidy, wheelie bins are in a side passage if possible (or somewhere where they are not jarringly obvious), and make an effort to clean doors and windows.

Turnoff 1: Bad First Impressions

People make up their minds in minutes if not seconds and if the outside and inside of your home isn’t looking its best you could be losing out on potential buyers. Try to look at your property from the point of view of a prospective buyer and use impactful decorating and interior design changes to impress.

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Kerb appeal is crucial when it comes to selling a house. After all, the property itself might be lovely, but if the street is overflowing with rubbish then it’s almost certainly going to be an immediate no-go from the buyer. If your house is near to a council-owned verge then I recommend asking permission to plant a few bulbs on it during the spring, or perhaps spreading wildflower seeds a few months before you plan to move. It might seem like small-fry, but everything helps!

Local Yopa agent Craig Thompson adds:

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10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

Although buyers often pay more attention to the property than the garden, strange unwelcome plants can send some people into a nervous sweat. One issue is Japanese knotweed, and although sellers are now required to state whether the weed is present on their property through the conveyancing process, many people simply don’t know what to look for. To complicate things further, Japanese knotweed often dies back down in the winter months, making it more difficult to spot. It is listed by the World Conservation Union as one of the world’s worst invasive species. Our advice here is to do your reading up on the subject (The Royal Horticultural Society have a good guide) and if you fear you might have some lurking in the garden then hire a specialist contractor to dispose of it safely. For the avoidance of doubt, it’s also best to remove any other non-indigenous plants from your garden before any house viewings. Finally, did you know that aggressive conifers cause so much friction between neighbours that the gov.uk actually has a webpage its very own webpage for how to deal with such situations? If you haven’t already, we recommend taking the shears to any offending shrubbery, as the last thing a potential buyer wants is friction with their new neighbours.

Turn-off 2: Peculiar plants

Groom your garden: An overgrown garden will not impress potential buyers. An easy and instant way to make it look better is to mow the lawn.

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Property Price Advice

10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

Turn-off 3: Dirty kitchens and bathrooms

Research conducted in 2012 by Rightmove found dirty kitchens and bathrooms were the two biggest turn-offs for potential homebuyers, with more than half of respondents selecting these from a list of gripes which included dated decor and unkempt gardens. Our advice here is quite simple; make sure your kitchen and bathrooms are cleaned before you have viewings! As Rightmove says, “giving them a sparkling finish can cost far less than other aspects in need of a home makeover.”

In many cases we also recommend getting in a professional cleaner to go over the whole house. This may cost a couple of hundred pounds but will really help buyers see themselves living in the property, especially with that fresh (and natural!) smell of a recently deep cleaned home.

Property Price Advice

A dirty bathroom is a big turn-off for potential buyers. Show yours at its best by giving it a thorough clean. Remove limescale from sinks, showers and WCs. Scrub grout with mould and mildew remover to remove tough stains.

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10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

However tidy, clean and well-kempt your property is, if the communal areas are in a neglected state then it can have buyers running for the hills.

The main issue is that communal areas rarely have a designated person looking after them, leading to a case of ‘it’s not my problem!’ when maintenance is called for.

Unfortunately, if you’re looking at selling up, it’s likely that you will need to step up to the plate and put in the work yourself to get things looking shipshape and Bristol fashion.

The good news is that a fresh lick of paint, a new rug and a new picture on the wall is often all it takes to make the difference. Remember, this is about those all-important first impressions, nothing more.

Turn-off 4: Untidy communal areas in flats

Banish smells. We get used to them, but they’re noticeable to others and they can influence a potential buyer. Go through the property about ten minutes before someone arrives and open up all the windows, so there are no stale lingering smells. Invest in a plug-in diffuser, which will keep the house smelling sweet. Steer clear of overpowering scents and choose simple fragrances like vanilla.

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Property Price Advice

10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

According to a study carried out by Zoopla in 2011, a house with ‘13’ on the door sells for £6,500 less than the street average. And it gets weirder… According to The Telegraph, almost a third fewer homes are sold on the 13th day of each month, compared to the monthly average. It seems us Brits are more superstitious than one might think.

Furthermore, if you’re looking to sell to buyers from the Far East (niche, but bear with us here…) then you may be at a disadvantage if your house number contains the number 4; it’s the unluckiest number in Chinese culture. So what can you do if you’re selling a home with an unlucky number?

The answer is simple: name your home! As well as making your property infinitely more appealing to anyone with triskaidekaphobia, it also can add value even more additional value by making your property sound more desirable. After all, who could dispute that ‘Cherry Tree Cottage’ sounds better than ‘13 Wilton Road’?

Turn-off 5: Unlucky numbers

10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

We all enjoy a good jig and jive to Fleetwood Mac or Slipknot from time to time, but persistent noise from a neighbour’s property is a sure-fire way to drive down the value of a home. If you do have problems with noisy neighbours, the best thing to do is to simply knock on their door, explain your circumstances, and ask them politely if they could not play their music during times where you have scheduled viewings. Hopefully this conversation will also trigger a bit of self-awareness on their part, as there’s a good chance they never realised they were being noisy in the first place. If worst comes to worst and your neighbours refuse to turn down their music, the only other option would be to try and schedule viewings for times when they aren’t usually at home.

The Area

Turn-off 6: Neighbours Playing Music

10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

Rightly or wrongly, national flags often have negative connotations attached to them, and as a result can make an entire street seem less appealing to potential buyers.

Legally speaking, there’s not much that you can do if your neighbour is flying one of these national flags, albeit with a few exceptions:

1. Neighbours will require planning permission for flagpoles exceeding 15 feet in length.

2. Neighbours will also require planning permission if the flag is not a national or saint flag. They can also not add emblems on the flag or the flagpole.

3. The flag must be a on single flag pole.

4. If you live in a conservation area, national park, or AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) then planning permission may be required regardless of the length of the flagpole.

5. If the flag is blocking light to your property then it may be deemed a nuisance.

Of course, the simplest solution would be to simply pop over to your neighbour’s house, explain your situation, and ask if they wouldn’t mind removing the flag until your house is sold. You may be surprised at how accommodating people can be - but it really depends on your relationship with your neighbours.

Turn-off 7: National Flags

10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

Finances

This might be an obvious one, but if you’re marketing your home for too much money, it will likely put people off before they’ve even stepped through your front door. Our first tip is to do your research. Rightmove, for example, has a wealth of information about sold prices across all areas of the UK. Simply look for equivalent properties to yours that have sold in the past year or two, have a nosey look at their levels of interior design, and try to objectively benchmark your house against the competition. After doing this, you should have enough local property knowledge to make even Kirsty and Phil quiver in their boots, but you should still get a second opinion from an estate agent. Remember, it is within their interests to get the maximum asking price for your property, for your property and sell it promptly as well as to sell it in the fastest time possible. But, don’t always go for the agent who guarantees you the highest sold price, as this is nearly always just bravado speaking and it can actually end up slowing down the sale of your house! Instead, our advice is to find an estate agent with a track record of achieving the original asking price. (On average, people who sell with Yopa achieve 98% of the asking price.)

You might also be able to reduce your asking price by saving money in other areas. For example, by listing your property with Yopa, you could end up saving thousands of pounds versus high street agents, giving you more leeway to reduce your asking price if push comes

Turn-off 8: It’s too damned

10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

Imagine that you’ve got your heart set on a property but it’s right at the top end of your budget. Everything about it is perfect, but in your heart of hearts but you know that it needs some work. You also know that any renovation work is going to push you beyond your budget, and after much deliberation you decide to withdraw your offer and look elsewhere instead. This happens more than you might think! The key here is to show buyers that - even if they’re not that fond of the interior - they could easily live in the property and do the renovation work gradually over time.

Turn-off 9: Renovation Costs

It’s a good idea to put dog and cat beds, as well as their bowls, away before a viewing. Some people will assume they have to replace carpets if pets are involved. Don’t give them an excuse to not buy your property.

Neutral colours always work best on walls. You may love your purple lounge, but for the sake of a tin of emulsion you can brighten a room up and make it a blank canvas.

Local Yopa agent Craig Thompson says:

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10 Homebuyer Turnoffs & How Sellers can Combat them

Legal technicalities

If you own a leasehold property, then you probably already know that leases gradually lose value over time.

This makes short-lease properties more difficult to sell, especially if they have less than 90 years left on them, because mortgages for these properties are much harder to obtain. In fact, some lenders simply refuse to provide mortgages on leases with less than 60-70 years remaining. HomeOwners Alliance reports that the longer you leave extending your lease, the more expensive it gets. Essentially, the value of your home is likely to be significantly increased by a properly negotiated lease extension. You can start the process now and hand it over to your buyer when you sell, which in turn would give your buyer the ability to extend the lease as soon as they move in (otherwise they have to legally wait another two years before they can start the process). You can visit HomeOwners Alliance for more advice and to find a leasehold extension solicitor who can run you through the process and likely costs.

Turn-off 10: Limited Time on Leasehold

If you’re still with us by this point, congratulations; you’ve made it out of Room 101! As a reward. You now have all the information you need to make your home more appealing to potential buyers.

If you’re thinking of putting your home on the market but you haven’t chosen an estate agent yet, visit Yopa to find out more about our full service, our local estate agents, and our out-of-hours support - all for a fair fixed fee.

So, in conclusion

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