Justine Potts, who has a background in architecture, started by giving friends tips on how to overhaul their houses. Now she has turned this into a career: earlier this year she set up Market London, dedicated to people selling their homes.
“Even in a busy London market, some properties are sluggish and harder to sell, simply because people have so much choice,” says Potts.
So what does she do, exactly, to make properties more attractive to potential buyers?
“It’s not fluffing up cushions and painting over cracks in the wall,” she stresses. “I don’t tend to do any sort of staging. It’s quite substantial work; ripping out kitchens, carpets and bathrooms.”
This does not come cheap. She says clients should expect to spend between 0.5% and 1% of the asking price, although she claims they can expect a 10% return on their outlay. One client, Lucy Rossiter, last year spent about £12,000 overhauling a flat in Highbury Park, north London. Market London reduced the size of the bathroom, and added an en-suite shower room to one bedroom and a dressing room to the other. The flat sold for £360,000 the day it went on the market, after initially being valued before the makeover at £290,000.
Not all house doctoring demands such emergency surgery. Milc Property Stylists, a firm that works nationwide, says about 75% of its work focuses on “dressing” a home: painting, adding smart accessories and often hiring out one of its furniture packs to give the property a cohesive look. Polly Maxwell, the director, says clients spend an average of £2,500-£3,500. Sometimes the firm may advocate more extensive work, but only if a place is in very poor condition.
“Bathrooms and kitchen are very important,” says Maxwell. “But you don’t have to spend a lot of money. Ikea does great kitchen units, and you can add smart surfaces. It’s a matter of shopping around and finding smart pieces to mix with cheaper items. You can do it for a few thousand.”
Spending as much as 1% of the asking price is not always necessary. A survey by Home Stagers, a nationwide property-styling company, revealed that people are happy to spend about £1,500 to prepare a house for sale, so that is the rule-of-thumb it works on. Tina Jesson, the firm’s founder and managing director, calls it the “one-year rule”: it is the amount people usually spend on a home in the first 12 months they live there.
Assuming bathroom and kitchen are in good order, most house doctors will start with a good declutter. “You have to depersonalise,” says Maxwell. “It’s very difficult to see past your own life, which is why people like to use us, because we go in objectively and look at it from a viewer’s point of view.”
It’s a matter of “seeing to the bones of a property”, says Ruth Canning, founder of Canning & Sheridan Interiors, which also offers a house-doctoring service. But leaving a property entirely empty is not a good idea — furniture gives people a better idea of how big rooms are. Ensuring each room has a clear function is also important: the sitting room is a place to relax in and the spare room is not just a dumping ground. Updating — a coat of paint, new door handles or light fittings — freshens a home without requiring a huge investment.
Some house doctors also give tips on showing buyers round, reminding vendors to take laundry off radiators and empty bins, for example. Jesson’s new take on the bread-in-the-oven trick is unlit vanilla candles.
“Something that’s furnished and dressed nicely will always sell quicker than something that’s not,” says Jamie Read, an agent at the Marylebone office of esate agency Carter Jonas. “People are buying into the lifestyle rather than just looking at four walls.”
James Baring, sales manager at Douglas & Gordon’s Pimlico office, agrees. “Adding the finishing touches or a lick of paint can always help with a sale,” he says. He mentions a flat he had on the market earlier in the year for £375,000. For several months it attracted little interest, so he advised the vendor to bring in a house doctor. Home Stagers went in, added furniture and accessories, and the flat was sold at its asking price by the next person who viewed it.
Most agents actively encourage vendors to ensure their property is in good condition. Scott claims that Lane Fox has become “politely draconian” with its clients in an effort to ensure a property fetches the best price, sending out checklists of things to do (painting doors, windowsills and ceilings, recarpeting and adding smart accessories, for example) and advising vendors on companies that can help. The south London estate agency Petermans even offers a free consultation with Milc if a property is valued at more than £300,000.
Those who have used house doctoring services generally seem to have had positive experiences. Adrienne Barnes and her husband David used Milc to furnish an empty townhouse in St Albans. Its initial valuation was £395,000, but after spending roughly £5,000 redecorating and hiring furniture through Milc for a month, the house was revalued at £450,000. They were offered the asking price within three days.
David Watson called in Home Stagers to ensure that his five-bed Victorian house in Nottingham looked its best for sale. Initially valued at £160,000, Williams then spent £3,000 on accessories, paint, new lighting and flooring and a new front door. The house was revalued at £200,000 and attracted a flurry of viewers, selling soon after for £195,000. “Home Stagers saved me from doing nothing, which could have cost me £35,000 in lost profit,” says Watson.
Some experts are wary of what they see as merely “dressing up a property”. James Greenwood, director of the property search company Stacks, says he always steers clients past properties that have had a makeover. He also points out that, in the countryside in particular, “there is a massive premium attached to an unimproved property. The tag ‘in need of modernisation’ on the front of particulars is one of the most useful weapons in an estate agent’s armoury. It’s likely to attract great attention — and fetch extraordinary prices”.
Unless your house is in dire need of modernisation, you’d probably do well to heed the words of Scott. “Would you go for a job interview in your nightie without brushing your hair?” he says. Although after creating such a lovely house, you may well decide you’d rather stay put …
RULES OF ATTRACTION
Hot tips to get a better sale
Update a tired kitchen with little things, such as new cupboard handles
