What is property preparation, and why is it important?
October 13, 2023
When it comes to selling a property, you may have heard the term ‘property preparation’ thrown about.
But it’s more than just a thorough clean, or staging your home for sale.
Property preparation is a comprehensive process that helps you turn your home into a welcoming environment that maximises its appeal to potential buyers, highlighting its best features and increasing its market value.
Here’s how we do it at Sherlock Homes.
Our property preparation process
Appraisal
Two of our agents conduct a professional appraisal of your home. We assess the property and its potential—not just on its face value, but looking past what’s currently there to see what it could be worth. We’ll identify the improvements that will get a better return come the sale, and compare your property against what it could be worth if it was in a different suburb.
Minor repairs and maintenance
During the sales process a building inspection will be completed. This helps to identify any potential issues with your home, and instil confidence in the buyer that they’re making a sound decision.
In some cases, all your home needs are some minor repairs, or a few touch-ups here and there, to help your buyers see your property in its best possible light. Things like patching and painting, tidying up scuffed walls, replacing old skirting boards and fly screens, and freshening up any dented doors.
But we also go deeper than that. Other tasks may include inspecting and repairing any plumbing issues, such as leaky taps, clogged drains, or running toilets. We check your electrical systems for any faulty outlets or wiring problems. We repair and replace broken essential fixtures, such as lights, switches, or doorknobs. It’s also crucial to ensure that all appliances are in working order: things like pool pumps, air conditioners, and similar.
And when it comes to the exterior of your property, we help you go beyond a simple sweep, a mow of the lawn, or some weeding. If necessary, we work with you to landscape your garden and tidy up the entire exterior of your home with cleaning, painting, and repairs, so you make a winning first impression.
Cleaning and home staging
Following any repairs, we give your property a thorough deep clean to get it looking fresh and new.
We then get it ready for viewing. This typically involves decluttering and depersonalising the space to allow potential buyers to envision themselves living in your home, and removing personal items, getting rid of any excessive furniture and clutter. By staging your home like this, and rearranging the furniture and décor in the right way, we help you enhance the flow of each room, showcasing it to its full potential.
Larger renovations
This step is something that people think about, but never actually do. After all, why would you improve the space if you’re not going to live there anymore?
But undertaking larger renovations to your home can increase your potential when selling, opening you up to more buyers.
Think about it: would you prefer to buy a property that needed work, or would you rather find a home that ticked all the boxes, straight away?
Things like renovating the bathroom—turning it from a functional space, into a relaxing, welcoming oasis of calm—or redoing the kitchen so it’s fresh, modern, and maximises your drawer and bench space, can boost your sale results significantly.
Complete new additions to your property
Sometimes the outlay can be worth the effort.
Upgrading your home from a 3×1 to a 4×2 boosts its value even further, taking it out of one market, and into another price bracket entirely.
In this step, where feasible and achievable, we can undertake tasks like helping you extend your home. It might be adding a modern new shipping container extension onto the back, building a granny flat in the garden, or extending upwards with a whole new floor.
This step takes a lot of work, and it’s not a quick process—but the effort can generate significant returns, and elevate your property from simply looking nice, to looking exceptional.
Leverage our network of experienced contractors
We take the headache out of getting your home ready for sale and manage the whole process for you
You don’t have to do a thing. We tap in to our trusted network of experienced contractors—teams we trust to get the job done to our satisfaction—who are ready and able to prioritise our work, to get your property preparation completed sooner.
From cleaners and gardeners, to painters, carpenters, electricians, tilers, landscapers, and more, each of our teams comes pre-vetted, so you get peace of mind that you’re working with a contractor that you can trust.
Get comprehensive property preparation with Sherlock Homes Group
The value that comprehensive property preparation can deliver to your sale is clear.
Instead of just being another home on the market, we help you transform your property with an upgraded appearance and unique features that make it stand out from comparable listings in the area. This allows us to list it at a higher price point, when compared to similar homes in the market, which ultimately helps you achieve a successful sale at a better price, maximising the return on your investment.
So when you’re thinking about selling, get in touch with our team and see the difference that our property preparation process can make to your final price.
Please note that the information provided in this blog is intended for general informational purposes only, and shouldn’t be construed as professional advice. It also may have changed between now and its time of publication, so we can’t guarantee its accuracy or completeness. As such, this means that we aren’t liable for any loss or damages arising from the use of the information provided in this post.