How can you help your vendors work out what to spend to prepare their property for market?
As an agent you have to wear many hats when working with vendors and walking them through the process of listing and selling their property.
Here are some tips to help them to work out the best approach and budget for that. Before we talk about a magic figure, think about suggesting that they split it into three sections:
- Money for the maintenance jobs they should have spent money on every year – ‘catch up money’.
- Money for items they can re-fresh, upgrade and take with them – ‘take with you money’.
- Everything else should be for the items required purely for presentation – ‘pre-sale presentation costs’.
As home owners, we always have a list in the back of our minds of ‘things I should have done around my house’. I believe that any owner we stop to ask could recite that list instantly! Homes absorb money every month of every year and if your vendors haven’t kept up with regular maintenance there will be a requirement to budget for catch up money.
This would normally go towards things like painting, general home repairs, replacement of cracked windows and the like. At BG Property Styling our owners can spend anything from nothing towards painting and just some man hours of maintenance, to hundreds of thousands of dollars – as an agent you will be well versed on what is required for the state the home is currently in and can help educate your clients towards fixing things up.
There are certain items we would always recommend that vendors buy and take with them. There are things that can be purchased with a professional’s help, which may save hire costs and look fantastic in their next home.
