• Making your home as attractive and inviting as possible is key, and is a large topic, and we can provide all the advice and help you would need, but lets assume you have got your home looking the way you want it to for viewings. Remember, it is said that very often people make up their minds about a property within 90 seconds of seeing it, first impressions really count.
• Get the heating and lights on in all the rooms a good 10 to 15 minutes before your potential buyers arrive. Your home needs to be warm and bright, you don’t want to walk into a room and wait for 30 seconds to a minute for the energy saving bulbs to heat up!
• As far as possible use softer table lamps and other mood lighting rather than ceiling mounted lights, Kitchens and Bathrooms excepted of course, this creates a softer and more intimate atmosphere. If you have an open fire or wood burning stove, light it and get a good flame going.
• TV’s are distracting so switch them off, but some soft music at a low volume can add to atmosphere. Scented candles not overdone, fresh coffee smells in the Kitchen. This may sound all a bit cliched and twee, but trust us, it works
• Plan how you are going to conduct the viewings, the order in which you are going show buyers around the different rooms in your home.
• Start and finish the viewing in the most impressive room in your home, such as your living room or open plan Kitchen/Family room if you have them.
• Allow your viewers to walk into each room in front of you, so you offer the least distraction to them of their first impressions.
• Stand adjacent to a wall, not in the centre of the room, this makes each room look as spacious as possible. This is especially important in the smallest rooms in your home, usually the bathroom, consider standing just outside the bathroom by the door.
• Talk enthusiastically about what you liked about your home when you bought it and what improvements you may have made to it over the years.
• Listen out for positive signals from your prospective buyers and gently reinforce these during your conversation,…yes it really is quite a large living room isn’t it….etc.
• Having completed an initial tour of your home, if your prospective buyers seem to be positive about your home and assuming you are comfortable with it, invite them to have a look around by themselves, make sure they feel they are not under any time pressure. Listen out for any further buying signals.
• Find an opportunity to gently probe your prospective buyers about their position, do they need to sell? have they sold?, are they on the market?, how quickly would they like to move? It is not always easy to get this information, but it can help you form an opinion about how serious they are about moving.
• Ask them what like and what they don’t like about your home, you might not always get a straight response as a lot of people don’t want to seem rude or offensive, but it is really useful to get this feedback.
• It is up to you of course, but we recommend that if they start talking about “what price would you take for your home” or want to make you an offer there and then that you refer them to us, when discussing price. Politely ask them to take that up with your estate agent.
• We will have the most up to date information on what prices are being achieved, we will have the complete picture on the level of interest in your property and we are trained negotiators. We are here not just sell your home, but to get the very best price possible given market conditions.

Prefer us to conduct viewings? We would be delighted, we look forward to meeting prospective buyers and using our skill and expertise to really sell your property to them. As trained members of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) we know how to make your home create the maximum impact possible in buyer’s minds.