Photo by Milivoj Kuhar on Unsplash
Described best as a perfect storm, the housing market has been red-hot for long beyond its due, with house prices rising and properties being snapped up at near-absurd rates. Over a span of just a couple of years, from 2019 to 2021, many have seen their properties increase in market price by close to 20%. You could even see this rise just between the summer of 2020 to the end of 2021.
Predictably, due to this development, many people have considered selling their homes for a bump in value. However, to make the gains advertised, you have to give your home the luxury shine that puts it above its true value. For anyone looking to buy on the housing market, they have to be lulled into this sense of getting that extra value, which you need to provide or at least showcase on the listing website.
So here are some tips and tricks to help you transform your home into a luxury property at little cost.
Know that people can filter you out
For the most part, the go-to way for people to find houses for sale these days is the internet. Homes are valued and presented on property websites, making it all too easy for people to view many properties at once at a very superficial level – a few key points and around ten images. Most importantly, you need to ensure that your pictures are eye-catching and that your criteria are filter-proof.
Property sites have followed the trend of several other online-based industries, with filters being a cornerstone of navigation. For example, within the online casino industry, players are able to customise their search experience by seeking out particular attributes of the games they want to play. One could search for casino free spins no deposit offers, and it would come up with thousands of results, which has led to dedicated directories making it easier for people to find the best of those promotions.
Similarly, property sites utilise filters such as furnished/unfurnished, options to exclude certain criteria like shared properties or retirement homes and also the choice of what distance properties are from amenities/transport links. Ideally, you want to present your home so that it can be clearly categorised according to those filters and sold efficiently on the basis of its prize assets.
Renovate where possible
While it might seem like a somewhat needless expense, given that you’re aiming to move on, performing low-cost renovations can prove to be the difference between a sale and a pass. You’d be surprised how much you can renovate on a budget. After you’ve checked over the roof, windows, plumbing, and electrics, you can then find that spending a little on the more room-encompassing aspects like wallpaper goes a long way.
As you can’t touch what you see in an online listing, and you’re really selling luxurious aesthetic rather than luxury-priced items, skimp on renovations that aren’t strictly functional. You can get away with cheap fixes to glaring problems, such as cracks in the wall or light-faded wallpaper. Of course, for the finishing touches, it’s sometimes worth going a little bit further to sell the luxury shine.
Space and light is everything
People want a lot of space for what they’re buying, and the luxury aesthetic tends to lean towards space being tactically used. Neutral tones can go a long way towards helping this, with whites, greys, and light browns not only making a space look larger, but also emphasising the lighting. Removing clutter, stacks of items, and pieces that don’t fit the overall colour scheme can also help.
Perhaps the best hack, though, is to incorporate mirrors. It’s a simple optical illusion, but putting up a mirror wall – to the most extreme way to achieve this feat – can essentially double the apparent size of your room. Perhaps the only trouble with this is making sure that you’re not in the reflection when you take the photos.
Tactfully fill small spaces
While the above tip is to make a room look like it has a lot of space, young shouldn’t do so to the extent that the room looks empty. The best way to fill these spaces is in a stylish and practical way, such as with an accent table. Filling spaces with something that is practical immediately gives it more value to viewers and makes the space being filled seem more worthwhile.
Put up a fake built-in
From filling small spaces to making the most of a whole wall, built-ins are the hallmark of a large room for intellects – both beloved by luxury hunters. Putting up a whole built-in can be very expensive, but you can achieve this feat with some relatively cheap additions. For example, you could get a few budget IKEA bookshelves, align them, maybe even stack them, and have yourself an eye-catching built-in.
Follow these tips before you photograph and list your home to ensure that you can catch the eyes of those hunting for luxury homes at what should be considered luxury prices.
