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Selling your home isn’t as easy as making sure it’s neat and tidy. Buyers often try a multitude of different ways to make their homes look and smell appealing, like baking cookies or giving the walls a quick lick of paint. But property experts Louisa Fletcher and Andrew Montlake explained in their podcast called The Property Show, that the smell of baked goods or fresh coffee isn’t enough to entice buyers.
Ms Fletcher, a property writer and expert, said “there’s no magical switch that goes off in the head of a buyer when they smell some kind of baked produce wafting out from your kitchen”.
“It just doesn’t work like that,” she added.
However, Ms Fletcher explained that buyers can be “put off” by unpleasant smells.
She said: “If you’ve got a viewing booked, make sure you’ve emptied the kitchen bins, you’ve bleached the sinks and the loos.”
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“I’ve watched this, and it’s happened more than once.
“I’ve watched buyers who have seen dog bed and dog bowls and stuff going ‘oh there’s dogs in the house’.
“Then they start looking in corners and under sofas.
“Literally, lifting up sofas because they think dogs have done things on carpets and they’re potentially buying a house with that.
“In fact, if it’s a really hot market in your area, it could happen even quicker than that.
“The thing to remember is, if your asking price is too high, people won’t book a viewing,” she added.
The property expert said homeowners should look at how many viewings you’ve had and how long it’s taken you to get them.
She said if you’ve had your property on the market for six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks or six months and you’ve only had one or two viewings, your property is likely priced incorrectly.
