Putting my house on the market

I don't see the point in replacing kitchens and bathrooms for the purposes of selling. Tastes vary, and if you want your money back (never mind compensation for the trauma of having it done) your taste will have to match that of the buyer. Otherwise they will factor in the cost of removing/installing a bath or kitchen island.

I think the bread/coffee smells have been overdone and yes, are now obviously marketing devices, but bad smells, such as pets should be neutralised. Fresh flowers are great, and if you have a garden and display some from there, you will show the possibilities for new owners.

Overall though, it is location and layout that matter. Our house was a tip when we bought it. It was a probate sale, and the house clearance people had taken any 'finishing touches' and left things like soap on the bath and teabags near the sink. It had definitely not been staged, yet there was a bidding war because of the location. I think if two neighbouring houses are for sale and all else is identical, then tarting things up a bit will help, but as yours is a one-off from the sound of things, you might be wasting your time.

One thought though - you might think about asking the agent to list it as both residential and commercial property? It would probably be 'subject to permissions' for the latter, but if it could be used as an Arts Centre it might appeal to other uses (nursery? training centre?) as well.

That's a good idea Doodledog. When we bought it 46 years ago it was being sold for industrial or commercial use as it had been used for 30 of its 200 years as laboratories for the paper industry.
We had to get permission to change it back to residential use which meant meeting strict fire regs. We also incorporated a separate flat for my DM and turned one of the labs into a pottery studio for me.

It has the best advantage of its position and nothing will ever match up so whoever suggested compromise - yes.

GrammarettonnYou can get help with decluttering by looking for local qualified ones on google. Their association is Association of Professional Declutterers & Organisers
www.apdo.co.uk/. Review you options for your area and pick a person or company you like. Whoever helps ou will take away everything you and to go to charity etc. If you have them once a week or fortnight you will have thinking time inewtween to use their paid time profitiably.

I downsized last year when I finally gave myself that final push. My estate agent was very understanding and didn’t put me under any pressure while I was still in my hesitant phase.

He suggested he could do all the preliminary paperwork and once I felt ready to put my house on the market he would have the photographer visit within 48hrs and my house advert online the following day.

He was confident my house would sell quickly and thankfully he was correct. I viewed a bungalow which was perfect for me. I made an offer on the bungalow and put my house on the market the same day. In the space of 7 days I made the offer on the bungalow, put my house on the market and accepted the best of 3 offers for my house. It all seemed too good to be true but I’m delighted to say it went like clockwork.

My only mistake was not allowing enough time to declutter and pack . I only had 5 weeks till removal date and it was utterly exhausting. I should have started months before. I made daily trips to charity shops and the local tip. I also offered some surplus bedroom furniture to my buyers as I was moving from 4 bed to 2. They accepted beds and wardrobes so that made my job a little easier.

Good luck Grammaretto. You’ll get there eventually and in the meantime keep at the decluttering and sorting. I completely underestimated that part of the process.

I just feel the need to comment...

Lots of people say they decluttered over A month...

I think SIX months is optimistic!
Even doing it every day, all day I know I couldn't do it in a month!

Those of us with stuff and those of us with not so much stuff are poles apart!


My mother-in-law thought she was cluttered(!)
She had kept almost nothing...
I think the only thing in her house that there are duplicates of (for example) are new light bulbs, wine, and rolls of toilet tissue!

NotSpaghetti

I just feel the need to comment...

Lots of people say they decluttered over A month...

I think SIX months is optimistic!
Even doing it every day, all day I know I couldn't do it in a month!

Those of us with stuff and those of us with not so much stuff are poles apart!


My mother-in-law thought she was cluttered(!)
She had kept almost nothing...
I think the only thing in her house that there are duplicates of (for example) are new light bulbs, wine, and rolls of toilet tissue!

I agree totally.
Have been decluttering for months now. I have never been a hoarder but my husband is, and we have deep cupboards and a big shed/workshop, is never ending.
On the other hand a neighbour of mine said she was decluttering prior to a move and it had taken her two whole weeks and a couple of trips to charity shops to get rid of it.
We should be so lucky.

Grammaretto - Over the last 20 years I sold two (mine and my mother's) houses in a heritage village in the north, and bought a larger property in London, which was subsequently sold for another bigger property elsewhere in London, which in turn was sold to allow a move to the countryside. My tips coincide with all the good advice on this thread but a few other things:
1. all estate agents put their properties on rightmove and the vast majority of potential buyers go to rightmove before going to the estate agents in the area where they want to buy so make rightmove your first point of research because it's that website which will probably sell your house for you rather than the marketing done by the estate agent. The estate agent will simply deal with the introductions and viewings. with that in mind, compare the commission charged by estate agents and don't be afraid to ask the question of why one is charging 1% more than another. 1% more could be several thousand more on your costs depending upon your selling price.
2. you can go to the land registry to find out what comparable houses in your road/area were sold for in the last few years. Of course, the estate agent will also be doing that but when selling my last home in London I had one estate agent who said he would market my house for £800K more than two other estate agents because he'd sold a similar property in a neighbouring road. I was inclined to be sucked into that rhetoric but came to my senses and decided this was not likely. As it turned out the sale on that 'similar property' fell through so that estate agent's claim was unfounded. So, ask the estate agents you're considering to show you what they have sold, and how long those sales took etc .
3. If you live in an area of low crime, make sure that goes into your marketing as many people are particularly interested in the safety they can expect and also the types of crime. Also if there's an effective Neighbourhood Watch or neighbours whatsapp group that establishes a community feel, add that into the information you provide about schools, transport links etc.
Good luck with your decision. You sound as though you've thought long and hard about it. Personally, I've found it very hard to downsize from my last property, as pieces of furniture especially have held memories of people and times in my life, so well done for sending these to auction and for everything else you've achieved in the de-clutter.

There are no comparable houses in the area so even the valuations - I've had 3 and a home report are wildly different.
200k difference. I'm hoping for something in between.

I agree withNotSpaghetti regarding different levels of stuff!
We inherited not only furniture from both sets of parents and my DH DGM but from his cousin and even his ex boss.
Actually the books are proving the hardest things to shift. I have photographed them in situ for dealers and broken the car exhaust with the weight of them on the way to a charity sale.

I have phone numbers of house clearers who are expensive but say they will deal with your stuff carefully or sell some of it.

My house-clearance person said "most books go for pulp"

Obviously the valuable ones will be removed but more "ordinary" academic books are "not so popular now" as a huge number are now online (where they can also be searched for key words)!

Aaarg!

I seem to have a lot of really interesting stuff.
A very very early hoover anyone?
A single brass door hinge of about 9"
A huge lovely box of Bilofix with no lid.

Beekeeping stuff, my old spinning wheel (missing a flyer - but here somewhere), knitting and sewing stuff, paper making, candle making, rag rugging, felting, leather work, printing, weaving stuff... gardening stuff and a pack of clay.
This is just what springs to mind.

And a 1970s computer which runs/ran on huge floppy discs...

Ha ha NotSpaghetti, that sounds like a treasure trove 🫣
We had several yoga mats, neither of us do yoga, old green shield books filled with stamps, half empty rusty tins of cow gum glue, empty browning photo albums - we kept the full ones, and for some reason a lot of plastic spoons.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg, or the iceberg destined for the tip.

That's very funny Fallingstar and NotSpaghetti
I empathise totally!
I'm also have green shield stamps but I have managed to get shot of a butterchurn, 12 heavy boxes of 78s. I still have the wind up gramophone.
There's still a long way to go
I've held a bric-a-brac sale and may do another.

Well Grammaretto I have gifted all the 78s and wind-up gramophone!
"Luckily" a shed at the bottom of the garden took longer to replace than expected and quite a few things were beyond rescue!

Someone is coming later today to take away lots of beer-making stuff and the old Burco which we used for mashing has already gone!

Fallingstar

NotSpaghetti

I just feel the need to comment...

Lots of people say they decluttered over A month...

I think SIX months is optimistic!
Even doing it every day, all day I know I couldn't do it in a month!

Those of us with stuff and those of us with not so much stuff are poles apart!


My mother-in-law thought she was cluttered(!)
She had kept almost nothing...
I think the only thing in her house that there are duplicates of (for example) are new light bulbs, wine, and rolls of toilet tissue!

I agree totally.
Have been decluttering for months now. I have never been a hoarder but my husband is, and we have deep cupboards and a big shed/workshop, is never ending.
On the other hand a neighbour of mine said she was decluttering prior to a move and it had taken her two whole weeks and a couple of trips to charity shops to get rid of it.
We should be so lucky.

This is why I started 6 years ago.
I am plodding on.

I didnt know back then, and still dont, if and when we will move.

I am not the most physically strong of people.
And no way did I want my DH to merrily throw all sort of things away, if we moved in a hurry.

Why do you all hold on to such ancient stuff?
Books of Green Shield stamps?
Oh lordy - no wonder decluttering has been/is being such an ordeal for some of you. 😦

My stuff goes nowhere near that far back, thankfully.

You've had lots of good advice here so would just like to wish you luck. Its a huge upheaval for you, having lived in the same house for so long. I sold my mine to move to a bungalow but it was a small modern house and I dressed it to look like a show house so it sold very quickly.
So good luck, have faith and hope you find a lovely new place to call home.

I suppose some of us had loads of space and simply allowed deceased relatives things to "exist" for many years in spare rooms, outbuildings or under beds.
We bought or exchanged strange and beautiful things and treasured lots of hand made things - what do you do with the items made by your ancestors - engraved glass vases, embroidery, inlaid boxes, fire irons and so on that you don't want to just "get rid of"?
Then there's the thousands of books, engineering research projects, 50 plus interesting baking tins (oh, which to keep?)...

Then the furniture...
Who wants "occasional tables" these days?

All can have a home but the decision making is really tough.

I get it Grammaretto.
If I work more earnestly on this now I may get somewhere by next spring.

I think you and I have to be quite ruthless.
I am taking digital photos of the things I'm actually binning (that are too unfit for anyone else but me) and am feeling that is easier.

I think you could do this too. Maybe it will help with those things that "just need rewiring" or need gluing with hoof and horn.

Thinking of you.💐

Sending you my best wishes Grammaretto it’ll be a wrench one way and another. I hope it goes well for you this summer in that you not only sell but buy too and find contentment (more sustainable than happiness I find, which comes in bursts) going forward. You are one brave lady doing this alone without much support (or encouragement) from your family. Trust your gut.
It’s rarely wrong.

Fallingstar

knspol

‘ In the UK you can definitely put an offer on a house when you don't yet have an offer on your own home’

That was not our DDs experience, estate agents in her area told them they could not offer on a property until they had an offer on their’s, perhaps other areas are different, they live in the south east.

I live in the South East and you and the estate agent are wrong.
Perhaps what the agent was saying was that the vendor only wanted offers from a buyer who had an offer on their own house.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Why do you all hold on to such ancient stuff?
Books of Green Shield stamps?
Oh lordy - no wonder decluttering has been/is being such an ordeal for some of you. 😦

😂

Any ration books?

Books are hard to get rid of IME. I was quite ruthless a couple of years ago and surprised myself by donating reference books rather than novels, on the grounds that reference books go out of date and their contents can be searched online very easily. Unfortunately I have accumulated more since then, so am going to have to have another purge soon.

The biggest problem we will have is the garage, which is crammed with power tools and similar. Mr D has an unfeasible number of the things. Plus whole cabinets of screwdrivers and spanners. He rarely uses them, although he recently fixed something for DIL, so the odd one comes in handy now and again. I have no idea about any of it, and if he goes first I don’t know what I will do with it all. Neither son nor SIL will want any of it (and daughter and DIL won’t give any of it house room), so I’d either have to pay to have it all taken away or put an ad online for people to come and take what they want. I wish he would sort it out, but (a bit like me and my yarn) doing that would be acknowledging that he’s coming to the end of his usefulness, which I don’t want him to do.

Grammaretto

That's very funny Fallingstar and NotSpaghetti
I empathise totally!
I'm also have green shield stamps but I have managed to get shot of a butterchurn, 12 heavy boxes of 78s. I still have the wind up gramophone.
There's still a long way to go
I've held a bric-a-brac sale and may do another.

I'm also have green shield stamps

Somewhere I have books (not complete) of PG Tips cards!
We used to swap them at school.
I quite fancy having a butter churn 😀

Must get back to decluttering.

Good luck, Grammaretto!