What are your top tips for selling a home? - £300 voucher to be won

Use a good estate agent with a prominent online presence. Make sure there is sufficient detail in the online listing, including an accurate floor plan. Have a good range of photographs showing your home’s best features. Make sure the photos show a reasonably tidy house- move clutter, coats, toys etc to another room first. House buyers are wise to tricks like flowers, neutral colours etc and prize location, room sizes and numbers and potential. Lastly, put the toilet seat down!

Declutter! I confess to having far too much "stuff" and am doing my best to get rid of as many unnecessary items as I can, If I was buying a new house I would look for neutrally decorated rooms with minimum furnishing so that I could picture my own belongings in place, I would want the garden to be neat and tidy and a storage shed would be useful.

make the front of the house inviting with a hanging basket or evergreen pot. have flowers in the living room and declutter and tidy as much as possible but retain the 'home' feel

Keep the place clean and tidy when people are coming to view. Do not bother with decorating unless it is really bad as the new people will probably not like your decorations. Just have a sort out and get rid of some things you have never liked, clothes that have seen better days. Anywhere that is dirty and smelly needs to be avoided, I once viewed a property shown round bathroom by owner who had not even bothered to flush toilet. Nothing worse in my mind. If asked questions answer truthfully as much as possible.

Make the home relatively neutral so that the potential buyer can imaging living there. Put away family photo’s, knick knacks and clutter. Keep everything streamlined even if that means storing bits of furniture and decorations. Make the house smell nice and tell the potential users what a great house it is for ....... whatever they are looking for. Above all make the first impression a good one.

A little bit of home fragrance is always a winner when selling a house I feel; subtle coffee scent in kitchen perhaps, something more sweet , floral or cosy in other rooms - wax warmers are brilliant.

Declutter, declutter - and then do some more! It's never bothered me about the state of decor/style but it does to a lot of people (we've always redone anywhere we have bought) - and make the outside appealing, but don't spend a lot on it

Ask a friend to read your "information" and to tell you if they think there's anything which you need to include/remove. Our friend noticed that we hadn't added the words "no chain", when in fact we had temporary accommodation available to us. Including this point turned out to be a key factor in achieving the sale - and for the full asking price.

My tip would be to have a really fresh scent to your home for prospective buyers. No synthetic sprays, just spotless freshly laundered cotton linens, throws, cushions and curtains. I think that creates such a welcoming fresh aroma to any house.

Clean and tidy with a fresh smell always impresses. Clutter is very off putting. Dated decor is less important to me as when moving in you usually want to make it your own and update decor to your tastes.

They say it only takes 2 minutes to like or dislike the house at first sight. Clean & tidy. Freshly painted. No animals or mess. Smell of a cake painting. No clutter. A well loved house sells itself.

really tidy up the front of the place
some people don't even come in if it is messy

First impressions are the key! Make sure that the front garden/ driveway and entrance are clean and tidy- try to hide the bins!!
Massively declutter, paint everything a light,neutral colour to make it light and airy,move as much furniture as possible to the edges of rooms to give the impression of space. Make sure that rooms reflect there use eg dining table and chairs in dining room.
Place a few nice table lamps around for a cosy look,if it’s winter/cold light a fire and make sure the heating is turned up so its nice and cosy, warm and welcoming.
If you have pets make sure that they and their stuff ( food dishes etc) are out of sight and that the house doesn’t smell of pets! It is a good idea to make your house smell sweet with some hidden air fresheners and some fresh flowers.
The smell of coffee brewing or bread baking in the kitchen is nice too!
It goes without saying that everything must be clean and tidy( repair/ replace anything that is broken) including in the garden. Just mowing the lawn and tidying the edges often does the trick!

Initial picture must be inviting. Tidy front lawn/drive etc. House hunters decide whether to view a house or not in the first 2 to 3 seconds of looking at the particulars. Sellers need to get people in through the door. Good luck!

Declutter and make it tidy and clean.

From my point of view. Make your house as clean abd tidy as possible, know your facts about how old boilers, window, dishwashers etc are. When gutters were last cleaned (not just clean but had debris & old leaves removed). Date of last boiler service. All stuff someone who wants to move in straight away usually wants to know.
Most importantly don't mislead people by saying that your dining room is a bedroom. If your have a garage - it should be able to take a car! Tell the truth. I would buy from someone who didn't lie rather than someone who did.

The smell once I step through the front door can be off-putting. Pets and their baskets, blankets and cages, smoking, kitchen bins (especially recycled food waste) cannot be eradicated by spraying the house with airfreshner, get some windows open.

Most important is to price realistically in the first place, so you don't have to 'reduce' the price a few weeks later when nobody has been to look around. Don't be greedy.

We have bought and done up 4 wrecks (we’re now happily living in the 4th).
When selling the previous 3 they were all decorated in a toned down version of whatever was fashionable at that time. They were all squeaky clean but ‘homely’ with a few well chosen bits about. All the houses sold within 6 weeks. The last one went on to be sold again 5 years later looking exactly the same as when the purchaser bought it from us, to the extent that we had had a red sofa in the sitting room which went to a charity when we moved out. On the subsequent sales photos, our purchaser had also got a red sofa where ours had been, and still had our curtains and colour schemes.
As someone else has commented, prospective purchasers can be wanting to buy into your lifestyle. So how would you feel if you were walking into your existing home and lifestyle for the first time.

Fresh flowers in as many rooms as possible. Oh and mirrors. Mirrors help the light and give the sense of larger spaces. ?

Panic I hate the whole concept... I'll be doing it in a year or two, and the thought of blanding the place fills me with horror...

STINKY SMELLS - I have moved 3 times in just a few years, when viewing houses if it absolutely stank, I could not even go past the hallway. So I would advise, open windows for fresh air, get those plug ins air fresheners, candles, or whatever.

I once had a couple and their baby to stay for 6 months, rent free, because they couldn't sell their house and we were doing a favour for our church idiots.

The problems were: They were asking too much and refused to reduce the price and it was in a remote village with no amenities, only accessible by car, and he was commuting to the city.
Once at ours they relaxed and hardly ever went near their house so no wonder no one else did.

My advice, from bitter experience, is be there, tidy if possible but not like a shop window, have a genuine reason to sell - otherwise the viewers may think you are running away from neighbours or neighbourhood and if you are then put on a good act. Remember what attracted you to the house in the first place.

You are selling an idea. Clean and polish, light the fire if you’ve got one, put on the lamps(not overhead lights) I like some happy photographs around.

I would declutter and clean every inch of the house. Make sure the garden is looking it's best too. It doesn't hurt to have some bread or cake baking while viewers look around. I bought our first house because the owner had baked some cakes! I once went to view a house where the man's wife had left him. When we went into his bedroom his dirty pants and socks were lying on the floor. A big no no. I couldn't get out of there quick enough.