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Ten tips for showing viewers around your house
If you’re handling your own viewings, it’s imperative to optimise the process of showing viewers around your house.
Showing viewers around your house can feel intimidating. At Cloud Estates, we simplify property marketing by vetting enquiries to ensure anyone who arrives at your front door is a motivated and viable purchaser. However, if you’re handling your own viewings (as most homeowners do), it’s crucial to represent your property in its best light, including maximising its presentation.
Even if you’re not confident chatting to strangers, or blessed with a silver tongue, these ten tips for showing viewers around your house are worth committing to memory…
- Rehearse your introduction. You can’t script an entire property tour, but a confident start puts everyone at ease. Practice a few icebreaker opening lines like “thanks for coming – I’ll be your tour guide today” until you find yourself saying them confidently.
- Neutralise aromas. While your home’s for sale, avoid cooking pungent foods like fish. Maximise fresh air, light a candle downstairs and banish smelly shoes into cupboard. If possible, remove pets from the property ahead of scheduled viewings.
- Start and finish in the strongest space. First impressions count, while the last thing people see lingers in their memory. Bookend viewings with your property’s best attribute – a large family kitchen, a suntrap garden or a well-presented period hallway.
- Highlight hidden features. Don’t just walk into the bathroom and say, “here’s the bathroom”. Add context and insider info – which rooms get the afternoon sun, any recent refurbishments or key specifications, and features regular visitors appreciate/comment on.
- Let people walk ahead of you. Walking around with your back to viewers feels unfriendly. They’ll struggle to hear you, and you can’t control when they move on to another room, which you can when leading from the back.
- Avoid negatives. Property viewings should be positive affairs, so don’t mention problems or issues. Say “the extension’s been reroofed” rather than “the roof used to leak”; “we’ve floored the loft” rather than “we ran out of storage”.
- Discuss flexibility. People may allocate rooms differently to your current configuration. If a home office accommodates a double bed, say so. Visitors may struggle to picture their furniture in unfamiliar spaces or imagine how certain rooms could be redeployed.
- Let people wander around. However comprehensive your tour has been, viewers will want to revisit certain features. Give them permission to explore unaccompanied, telling them where you’ll be waiting once they’ve finished, and then encouraging any supplementary questions.
- Don’t talk turkey. We recommend deflecting questions about offers or interest levels to Cloud Estates and our team of property professionals. Even if you’re a salesperson by trade, discussing property values during viewings is a minefield!
- Say goodbye. After showing viewers around your house, walk them to the front door and thank them for coming. This creates a positive final impression, suggesting you’ll be approachable and reasonable during offer negotiations or conveyancing.
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There has always been tension between the competing rights of tenants and landlords. Proposed Section 21 changes will rebalance this relationship in favour of tenants, but they’ll come at a cost.
If you’ve ever rented a property from a bad landlord, you’ll understand the frustrations of inadequate maintenance and the threat of your tenancy being abruptly terminated. Equally, if you’ve ever rented a property to a bad tenant, you’ll understand the frustrations of antisocial behaviour and non-payment of rental income.
Striking a balance between the respective rights of tenants and landlords relies on historic legislation, and nobody is entirely satisfied with the current situation. The Conservatives promised in their 2019 election manifesto to abolish no-fault evictions, but these plans – often referred to as Section 21 changes – have yet to be implemented.
What does Section 21 allow landlords to do?
As defined in the Housing Act 1988, a Section 21 notice of possession is the document landlords give to tenants when they’re preparing to take possession of a rented property. It relies on a county or high court officer executing an order for possession within 14 days of a notice being issued on an assured shorthold tenancy. People routinely use the phrase ‘no-fault evictions’ because landlords don’t need a reason for issuing a Section 21 notice.
What would the proposed Section 21 changes mean?
In a 2022 white paper titled ‘A fairer private rented sector’, the Government pledged to abolish Section 21 evictions, improving the security of tenancies across England and Wales. This would ensure tenants can’t be evicted for spurious reasons – requests for essential maintenance causing landlords to regard tenants as an irritation, for instance. Tenancies can only be ended on specific grounds, and documented evidence will be required that one or more of these criteria has been met.
Does this make life harder for landlords?
Section 21 changes will be counterbalanced by revisions to Section 8 of the Housing Act. Landlords will be able to repossess a property on various grounds, such as wanting to let a relative move in, or choosing to sell the property. These grounds for notice will become mandatory, so the eviction must happen if the landlord can demonstrate any relevant criteria have been met. There will also be stronger powers to evict non-paying tenants, or anyone engaging in antisocial or criminal behaviour.
Are these Section 21 changes certain to happen?
Governments break their promises all the time, so there’s no guarantee the abolition of Section 21 will happen. The National Residential Landlords Association is demanding court reforms before Section 21 is abolished, citing huge court case backlogs and inefficiencies in existing processes. With landlords abandoning this sector and rental prices soaring, the Government may even decide to delay implementation until after next year’s general election.
Where can I get more advice?
At Cloud Estates, we’re highly knowledgeable about the proposed Section 21 changes, and how they might impact the local market. Contact us at any time to discuss your tenancy or property portfolio.
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At Cloud Estates, we’re experts in bringing homes to market, finding buyers for properties of all types. However, we can often achieve higher selling prices if homeowners work with us to maximise the appeal of their properties...
View your home like a stranger
The weeks before a property listing goes live represent a unique opportunity. You want buyers to fall in love with your home, and yet it’s easy to spoil those all-important first impressions. Start the process of preparing your home for sale by standing outside and surveying everything with a critical eye. Are there weeds growing out of the paving stones, mould below the windowsills or bald patches across the lawn? Many prospective viewers will do a drive-by before making an appointment, and signs of neglect could deter them from booking an appointment. Red flags include tumbledown sheds, unmowed grass and badly maintained boundary walls/fences.
Once you’re confident your property’s kerb appeal has been maximised, give the interior the same critical treatment, room by room. Clutter is a guaranteed turn-off – shoes beside the front door, cereal boxes on the worktops and toiletries along the bath. The implication is that your home lacks storage – and if you’ve outgrown it, so might potential purchasers. Preparing your home for sale is the ideal time to donate old clothes, toys and books to charity. Streamline the contents of your kitchen cupboards and wardrobes (viewers sometimes open them!) and find a hidden home for paperwork and keys. Your loft, garage and airing cupboard don’t need to be immaculate, but they should look presentable. If they’re not, hire a skip and have a clearout.
Mistletoe and wine
Preparing your home for sale involves tackling those little DIY jobs – oiling door hinges so they don’t squeak, replacing blown lightbulbs and filling holes in the ceiling where you hung mistletoe last Christmas. You might have fond memories of the party when you spilled red wine on the carpet, but a stranger will just see an ugly stain. Far better to tackle these problems pre-emptively. You don’t have to redecorate every room, but the property needs to look fresh and well-maintained.
When your home’s for sale, it’s yours and yet not yours. You need to live in it, but you shouldn’t throw parties or cook whiffy food. A viewer could knock on your door at any time if there’s a board outside, though we’ll always try to arrange official viewings at convenient times. It’s often advisable to box up hobby equipment or collections, minimise the toiletries on display in bathrooms, and pack ornaments ready for moving. Take down any football paraphernalia, too; a Sunderland fan won’t be impressed by a giant poster of St James’s Park, for instance. It won’t cost you a sale, but it creates negative connotations, especially when people are viewing photos online.
If you’d like more advice on preparing your home for sale, give Cloud Estates a call for some personalised property marketing advice.
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High demand in Heaton
Few suburbs of Newcastle hold as much appeal as Heaton. Less than a mile from the city centre, this elegant east end suburb expanded throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. Today, its bay-fronted terraces and inter-war semi-villas are highly sought after – and not just for their classic architecture.
Like neighbouring Jesmond, Heaton has become one of Newcastle’s most prestigious suburbs. Yet unlike Jesmond, Heaton remains comparatively affordable. You can buy a property here with a £120,000 budget and rent an immaculate flat for £800 per calendar month, whereas you’ll pay considerably more for comparable properties on the western side of Jesmond Dene. While High Heaton is synonymous with semi-detached houses, South Heaton (which is usually referred to without the prefix) is more traditional. Elegant bay-fronted terraced houses stretch along grid-pattern roads, broken up by hedges and corner retail units.
A desirable destination
There are good reasons why Heaton is such a sought-after location among homebuyers and tenants. Heaton Park is a unique attraction, where allotments and wooded walks are joined by a play park and a historic windmill. Chillingham Road stretches between the large outlets at Newcastle Shopping Park and the fittingly titled Coast Road; it’s a quick drive east to the golden sands of Tynemouth from here, with Whitley Bay a couple of miles further north along the coast.
Heaton’s public transport links also play a key role in underpinning demand for homes here. The Chillingham Road Metro line has five services an hour departing for South Shields/Whitley Bay, plus another five heading into the city centre. Monument Station is just six minutes away, so it’s unsurprising that Heaton has become hugely popular among city-based commuters, especially as companies introduce hybrid working patterns or encourage a full-time return to the office.
At the heart of the local community
Chillingham Road is the epicentre of the local community, home to various long-standing family-owned businesses and modern eateries. This year alone, the Flight Bar cocktail bar and HIDE bistro have opened in Heaton, reflecting the vibrant night-time economy in this area. A block west of Chillingham Road is Heaton Road, where you’ll find other popular restaurants alongside dog grooming salons, antique furniture stores – and Cloud Estates’ head office.
“There are good reasons why Cloud Estates moved our office to Heaton in early 2022,” says director James Skoyles. “We’re at the heart of the local community, in an area where people are keen to move to or stay once they’ve settled here. Because of all these local amenities, and big employers like the Freeman Hospital, there’s huge demand to live here. It’s often better to register interest with us than wait for a property to reach the open market, by which point it might already have attracted lots of enquiries.”
If you’d like to be among the first to know about new sale and rental homes as they reach the Heaton market, get in touch with us and register your details by clicking here.
