If you’re selling your home to downsize, or trade up into a bigger family home, your need to achieve the best possible sales results has a direct impact on your long-term financial security. While all rooms should showcase some element of thoughtful styling to help get as many buyers as possible competing for your property, working with a tight budget or challenging time-frame can limit your ability to make a huge impact, however, focusing on some key rooms – including smart styling of your kitchen – can make a real difference to your sale price.
To get your kitchen looking great, try these easy 7 tips to style your kitchen.
1. The Smell of Sales Success is in the Air
Remember that advice about luring potential buyers in to your kitchen with the inviting smell of baked goods? It’s time for a fresh approach. Step away from the oven and reach for the scented candles, instead. Be subtle and friendly – fresh citrus scents are great for spring, whilst warmer, comforting aromas of vanilla and other spices may be better suited for winter. Ask your agent whether it should be lit (for a boost in fragrance and atmosphere) or just left in its pristine state, as a more gentle hint of scent. They are experienced at making properties look and feel their best and their advice is usually worth listening to.
2. Decluttering Matters
You might be proud of your child’s latest and greatest school achievements but for potential buyers entering your space and being hit with a litter of excursion reminders, certificates and oil-splodged, dog-eared family photos on your fridge doors, the effect is messy and chaotic.
Get rid of those fridge magnets too – and wipe grime and fingerprints from your fridge doors until it sparkles to create a clean, fresh ambience visitors to your space will appreciate.
3. Clean Beyond the Surface
Yes, your cupboard doors and handles might really be clean – and your benchtops sleek and shiny – but people planning to buy your property want to look beyond the surface to see how their own lives will fit into your familiar space. That reality is, open inspections will see the stickybeaks open doors and drawers to peer inside.
Those toast crumbs in the cutlery drawer and clutter of the ‘everything’ drawer you’ve loaded with every possible spare battery, light-globe and electric lint-remover? Strip your storage space back to give the illusion of plenty of room and wipe down the insides of pantry shelves and saucepan cupboards with as much passion as you gave to the outside. If it’s all too much, invest in a professional cleaner to get things looking wonderful – the powerful impact your amazingly clean kitchen can have on would-be buyers will be worth it.
4. Focus on a Feature
It doesn’t have to cost the earth but the addition of one dramatic feature piece – a gorgeous splashback, or stunning light fixture – can be the boost your kitchen needs to attract attention and be remembered by prospective buyers. Talk to your agent and their interior design experts for some budget-friendly advice. Of course, if your home is more likely to be bought by developers, it’s not worth the spend. Be realistic about your ideal audience before spending too much on styling.
5. Adding Fresh Elegance
A beautiful vase with fresh flowers, or a large bowl arranged artfully with fresh fruit, is always a nice touch that adds some life to your kitchen. Look for seasonal elements you can bring in and if you can help create flow from indoors to out (flowers or fronds from your garden, perhaps?), it’s even better.
6. Terrific Tea-Towels
Decluttering is important but the reality of a kitchen is that tea-towels and dishcloths are part of everyday life, so to present a practical, working kitchen, they can have their place in kitchen styling – provided they add some beauty. Look to the palette of your fruit/flowers and surrounding decor to introduce a pop of complementary or matching colour and choose stunning quality that gives a hint of luxurious class to lift your kitchen from tired to terrific. In a sea of hard surfaces, it adds a touch of much-needed softness that is a friendly, welcoming touch of real-world style.
Overall, styling of any room, needs to have a focus on clean, comfortable appeal that enables potential buyers to imagine their own lives being enjoyed in the space you’ve called home.
To find out what you need to be in the market for your next home purchase, talk to our team of mortgage broking professionals and Lending Specialists today.
