Rooms you should improve

Without having to go mad, or spend a huge amount, there are still some things which you ought to improve or change to improve your chances of getting a sale at the best price. It's all about people's perceptions of the kind of lifestyle they could have in the property. Exchange 'decaying tip' for 'friendly old house'. How do you do it? Here are some suggestions.

Hallway

The first glimpse your prospective buyer will have of the inside of your home is the hallway. It seems that it takes very little to switch a viewer from open-mindedness to "definitely not". That decision can apparently be made in the hallway, after which you're beautifully laid out living room will have no effect. All the pundits agree that you must make the hallway give the right impression. It should seem as spacious and light and airy as possible. So paint it a light colour and remove heavy furniture you have to squeeze past.

Living room

When a potential buyer stands in your living room door way, he or she is thinking "Could I live in here? "Most people are not imaginative interior designers, so they may try to see past the flower-patterned flock wallpaper, but quickly give up the battle with "I couldn't live here". So your task is to make it as easy as possible for the unimaginative majority to see themselves happily living in your home. That means playing the percentages and making the property look as appealing as possible to the large middle ground of buyers - which you may personally feel is boring and awful, but it's what is most likely to sell your house. At its most extreme, if the room is a bit small and seems overpowered by your large flower print double sofas, it may pay you to put them in storage and hire smaller daintier furniture, just till you've sold the property. Property developers put rented furniture in their properties to make them look inviting. You never see a ‘Home and Garden’ type magazine just showing four walls and a fitted carpet, so accept the fact that the right furniture can sell a property.

Dining room

If you are selling a house, or a large flat, it can often be extremely important to have a dining room. When a family moves in, it may quickly degenerate into a family play area, but when they are looking for a home they aspire to a formal dining room. Everyone will tell you that the number of bedrooms you have in the house is important, and that is true, but you should not claim every room in the house without a tap is a bedroom when marketing a property for sale. Obviously, you're not going to claim an upstairs room next to the bathroom is a dining room, but equally if the room next to the kitchen has been used as a bedroom, it may be a good idea to turn it back into a dining room before you put the property on the market. It all depends on the market for the type of property and you should consult your estate agent about what room use will add value.

A dining room should look like a dining room and have a dining table and chairs in it. You may be able to rent them if necessary. Some people argue that you should even set the table up as if for a dinner, but I think that looks too obviously posed. A tablecloth and a centrepiece for a lamp is enough. But, as with the living room, it's all about putting into the visitors' minds an idea of how they could live in the property.

Bedrooms

A teenager's bedroom painted black or dark red could be repainted white. Furniture crammed into rooms so that they look impossibly small should be removed. It's better that a room should have no obvious wardrobes than that it should look ridiculously small as a bedroom. Buyers can figure out what to do about their own storage when they move in. Unless you are selling to a bachelor market, a more feminine style to a bedroom will be most appealing.

Kitchen

Kitchens are very important to the man or woman of the family, or both, who will be doing the cooking. There is no point splashing out on a completely new granite work surface, new cupboards, and a new NEFF cooker. Money spent on upgrading kitchens is usually not recouped in additional purchase price. But there are smaller improvements which may well be worth making. If painted cupboard doors look out of date or worn, then they should be repainted. Slightly more expensive, but sometimes worthwhile, you could replace cupboard doors with modern ones, without replacing the cupboard carcase itself. Dark coloured cupboards and units should be converted to light coloured ones wherever possible. It gives a greater sense of space and fits in with most people's concepts of an attractive kitchen. The tiling of the splashback between the counter and the cupboards above might need cleaning or even replacing. That is not too big a job. If the floor covering looks worn and dull, it may be relatively cheap to have a new piece of high quality floor covering put down. Then it would look as if it's almost a completely new kitchen! But you won't have had to spend much money.

Bath room

The avocado bath and toilet suite is a well worn joke, but an awful lot of people bought them, and if you have anything coloured in your bathroom have it replaced by a white suite. It may sound like engaging in major building works, but actually it can be done quite quickly and cheaply. You should also make sure you install a proper power shower, with a glazed door on top of the bath, not a plastic curtain. The new units will have different footprints, so you will have to change the flooring. Never use carpet in a bathroom. Visitors will have vivid ideas of what may have splashed onto it. Use quality lino with a light colour to suggest space.