As temperatures dip, and leaves fall with the promise of winter ahead, real estate sales and rentals also cool with weather. But even in Budapest, Hungary, with a market that’s hitting bottom now, if you’re looking to sell or rent, not everything is lost.
Now, you may ask, with the incredible abundance of properties for sale and for rent alike, how do you plan to make your property go? Well, it is certainly not easy, and you can complain about the impossible market, but have you done the necessary steps to make your flat or house more compelling than the others? Here’s what you need to do to set your property apart from the competition:
1. Lighten up: fall is a time of less natural light, which as we all know, is the most important weapon against “winter blues”. Now, you don’t want to cause your potential buyers or tenants to get a seasonal affective disorder just by entering your home, so make sure there’s enough light when you’re showing. Always open all the blinds and curtains, and turn on the lights on dark areas of the apartment such as corridors or pantries. If you can, try to schedule the showing at an hour when there’s still daylight, or, even better, if you can get lucky and show it on a sunny day, your home is almost sold.
2. Warm it up: one of the major turn-offs for buyers or renters is a cold apartment or house, and they won’t give the property the chance it deserves. By spending a little extra money on heating it up before showing and therefore making your home warm and inviting goes a long way. One important advice, though: don’t overdo it. When your prospective clients enter all bundled up in their winter coats, the last thing you want is to make them is sweat. I’d say keeping the temperature around 19-20 Celsius degrees would be perfect.
3. Maintain landscaping: While flowers aren’t exactly flourishing in this time of the year, there are several ways to make your home nicer and more appealing. If your property is a house, or in a small condo with a garden, make sure the grass is cut once a week, and pay special attention to clearing the leaves before the showing.
4. Move if you can: inhabited properties are always much harder to rent or to sell. This has several reasons, one of which is that most people have a hard time (meaning completely unable to) imagine a flat or a house without all the owner’s furniture and/or personal belongings in it. So move out of the apartment if you can, but at least hide all the personal belongings you can. The more neutral you make the place, the bigger the chance of renting or selling quickly.
5. Make nice photos: taking simple but effective and nice shots of your property is essential. Think about it: when you start advertising your real estate, what is the first thing people will look at and decide if they’re interested at all? Exactly. The photos of the property you’re offering. So why not spend a little more time on making it as good as possible. I advise you get or borrow a good camera, because no matter how good your smart phone is, it’s not going to take the same quality pictures as a device specifically designed for taking photographs. Wait for a nice sunny day, make the bed, organize your house, get some fresh flowers, and start taking those shots. You can even enhance them on your computer pretty easily with circa the 3,000 software that’s out there, but be careful: if you overdo it, and lie too much about your real estate, people will be disappointed when they come and see the reality.
5 + 1. Pricing: Know the saying about the 3 most important factors in real estate? “Location, location, location”. There’s another 3 right here, when you actually want to sell or rent: “Pricing, pricing, pricing”. It cannot be emphasized enough that an overpriced real estate will sit empty for a long time, so it is imperative that you price your property reasonably. It is not an easy task, but if you’re uncertain, you can always ask a real estate agent for an approximate price, or have an appraiser look at your apartment for a more accurate estimate.
