How to get your home ‘summer ready’ to catch a buyer’s eye

• UK estate agents offer their top advice on what makes a home sell over the summer
• House sellers need to draw inspiration from the summer, by decluttering spaces, presenting their gardens well and making the most of sunny aspects
• 42% of agents use ‘seasonal inspired’ terms (e.g. ‘light and airy’ in the summer and ‘warm, cosy and intimate’ in the winter) to market their properties

With the summer months being busier for home buyers, according to research by My Home Move, top estate agents offer their advice to sellers on how to capture the home hunters’ eye.*

Top of the list is for sellers to declutter their home and draw inspiration from the summer by creating a light and airy space (50%). In second place is the advice to plant up and tidy the garden to present it as an ‘outdoor’ room (21.4%), while spring cleaning the front of the house to ensure paint work is spruced up and windows are clean (17.8%) is number three.

Commenting on the results, Doug Crawford, CEO of My Home Move, said, “With the better weather and a sense of holiday in the air, house hunters are looking to buy a ‘life style’ when it comes to their next home. They want to be able to use the garden for outdoor living, while the interior needs to reflect the light and airy spaces they associate with sunny days on the beach.”

When asked, the estate agents also stated that homes close to outdoor amenities (parks and greens) and those which caught the summer sun, were the most popular property features with summer house hunters (39.2% and 21.4% respectively).

Continuing, Doug said, “It’s interesting how seasons affect what people look for in a property and as such how sellers should present their homes. Estate agents have used this trick for years, changing the language they use in adverts to reflect the property’s seasonal aspects, and sellers should capitalise on this to ensure they stand out from the crowd to command a good offer price.”

* Data is available upon request