best and cheapest way to make house more appealing for sale

[need_2_sell]

I need to sell my house ASAP it has been on the market for AGES! and it is now necessary to sell as i have a baby due very soon. I wanted to know what would be the best and cheapest way to make it look good to attract buyers. Its dark red brick and i was thinking a thin render or even if you could paint the bricks (but they are rough and i dont think this will look very good!!) I see a thin render on new houses aroung that you can still see the outline of the bricks and wondered if this is a cheaper way to go?The house is in Oxley Park (western Sydney) if someone has an idea or could do something cheap please let me know.

thanks!!

[abitfishy]

Yuk, we have to sell ours soon too mate, not looking forward to it.

It will be good to hear opinions on rendering brick as we are going to be looking for a livable, but 'original' old style brick house to clean up a bit and we were thinking of rendering ourselves (the new place, not our old). Unfortunately we are moving to a much more expensive part of Sydney (from Sutherland we are going north - I like Beecroft/Cheltenham) so we need to spend more for a worse house!!!

Hints/tips will be great as we could only afford to do the rendering ourselves after borrowing an extra couple of hundred K!!

[Wood Butcher]

I wanted to know what would be the best and cheapest way to make it look good to attract buyers.

Drop the price

[need_2_sell]

would drop the price but then id still owe money its complicated

[BobR]

If you have cable, have a look at House Doctor on How To channel. It is a pommy show that will never top the ratings, but prepares a house that has been on the market for a while so that it will move. Might give you some presentation ideas. Nothing on rendering though. Good luck.

[pharmaboy2]

quick, hurry and render dont go together!

get some experiecned estate agents out - ask whats turning people off? one of them will tell you - couple of grand on afront garden, or flat rear deck, few pebbles and a water feature can sometimes do wonders - but nothing can perform miracles if it is overpriced - its only worth what the marekt thinks it is - doesnt matter didly what you paid for it, what it owes you or what you think its worth.

I'd try and seek out the gun agent in the area, and get their feed back with a view to changing agents.

[Honorary Bloke]

would drop the price but then id still owe money its complicated

Bless my soul, it's not complicated at all. You are what's called Upside Down on your house, like thousands of others in a fluctuating market.

Best advice, spend some money on the front landscape. Kerb appeal. Can't sell it if people won't even go in.

Forget the render, that's a non-starter--won't help much.

Pricing and staging, pricing and staging--that's what sells houses. If you haven't done so:

• Clear off all personal pictures anywhere in the house. People can't imagine themselves in it if they feel like you are still in it.
• Clear off all clutter (and I mean ALL) on countertops, especially kitchen--makes it look bigger.
• Empty about half of your clothes out of closets (wardrobes), to make them look larger and uncluttered.
• I always tell clients to rent a temp storage place and put all this clutter there, including extra pieces of furniture. Haven't seen your house but am willing to wager you could get rid of 1/3 of furniture without hardship.
• Paint interior walls a neutral colour, like off-white. People are put off by bizarre colour schemes--just because you like it doesn't mean they will.
• Wall-paper should be banned by law, but that is too much to hope for.
• If builders in your area are showing model homes (new construction), visit them see how they have staged them--that is the look you want. Clean, neat, spacious, uncluttered. Give the prospective buyer the room to imagine his furniture there.

[Disclaimer: I am an estate agent, but in the U.S. Your mileage may vary, but I'll bet not much. ]

[echnidna]

Bobs right on the mark, the same things apply in oz

[Ron Dunn]

Honorary Bloke is a BLOKE??

*lol* ... I thought s/he was a Sheila ... but one with enought aptitude for blokey things to get the "Honorary"

[Honorary Bloke]

Honorary Bloke is a BLOKE??

*lol* ... I thought s/he was a Sheila ... but one with enought aptitude for blokey things to get the "Honorary"

Harrumph!!!

Nar, just a Seppo with enough Ozzie in him to get the title Honorary.

[Note to self: Ramp up the macho on your posts a bit, people are beginning to talk! ]

[Lignum]

Burn it down and use the insurance to build a better one and sell that for more money

[Dirty Doogie]

Have you got a pic? And how much do you want to get for it?

[Art Martin]

Bless my soul, it's not complicated at all. You are what's called Upside Down on your house, like thousands of others in a fluctuating market.

Best advice, spend some money on the front landscape. Kerb appeal. Can't sell it if people won't even go in.

Forget the render, that's a non-starter--won't help much.

Have to disagree on the render. Maybe not big in the US, but on the right sort of house here it can add a lot of value. Red bricks are not particularly popular colour these days(nor can I see it being the case any time in the medium term), so rendering can make sense.

You have to do it right though, and have the style of house to do it.

[echnidna]

Not everyone likes rendered houses.

What Bob's on about is making the front attractive enough to get people over the doorstep, and looking through the house. He's talking about presentation, which is the key to selling.

Do a poll along the lines, would you buy a rendered house?

[Dirty Doogie]

GENERAL THEORY

When the property market dives it is only the renovated places that will sell readily and for anything near previous prices.

Absolutely no point rendering and making the outside look novated if inside is still a 30 - 40 year old scratchbox.

That would only reinforce the idea in buyers minds that it further work.