Timing is everything

When you get a call from your estate agent to book in a viewing, are you ultra accommodating, eager to please?  Do you change your plans in order to make sure that your viewers can view your home when they want to?

Let me ask you another question – when is the best time to view your house?  There are usually several factors to consider, including traffic flow, and I suggest you need to decide in advance which are the very best times for someone to see your house at its best, and arrange your viewings accordingly.  Here are some of the times to avoid wherever possible:

School times – if you live anywhere near a school and parents have a tendency to park near your house when collecting and dropping off.

Commuting hours – it’s not easy to compete with the noise of the traffic when you’re in your garden telling your viewers how quiet the area usually is.

Bin days – no street looks nice with a row of wheelie bins waiting for the bin men.

Crowd noise – if you have a football ground or other event venue nearby, keep an eye on the schedule and avoid any large and potentially noisy events.

As well as these times to avoid, think about when your home actually looks its best; when the light streams through the kitchen window for example.  Lots of buyers are keen to make sure the garden is well lit at key times of the day, so show yours off and arrange the viewings accordingly.

A keen buyer won’t be put off by restricting the times they can view, and I’ve heard many stories of buyers viewing properties at simply the wrong time of day.  By helping your viewers to fall in love with your home before they see it at a more compromised time, they will themselves overcome these objections, without it becoming the deal breaker it can be.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch

What to read next: Why rejection is like gold dust

What to do next:  Sign up to my Selling Secrets http://www.home-truths.co.uk/selling-secrets

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Timing is everything

When you get a call from your estate agent to book in a viewing, are you ultra accommodating, eager to please?  Do you change your plans in order to make sure that your viewers can view your home when they want to?

Let me ask you another question – when is the best time to view your house?  There are usually several factors to consider, including traffic flow, and I suggest you need to decide in advance which are the very best times for someone to see your house at its best, and arrange your viewings accordingly.  Here are some of the times to avoid wherever possible:

School times – if you live anywhere near a school and parents have a tendency to park near your house when collecting and dropping off.

Commuting hours – it’s not easy to compete with the noise of the traffic when you’re in your garden telling your viewers how quiet the area usually is.

Bin days – no street looks nice with a row of wheelie bins waiting for the bin men.

Crowd noise – if you have a football ground or other event venue nearby, keep an eye on the schedule and avoid any large and potentially noisy events.

As well as these times to avoid, think about when your home actually looks its best; when the light streams through the kitchen window for example.  Lots of buyers are keen to make sure the garden is well lit at key times of the day, so show yours off and arrange the viewings accordingly.

A keen buyer won’t be put off by restricting the times they can view, and I’ve heard many stories of buyers viewing properties at simply the wrong time of day.  By helping your viewers to fall in love with your home before they see it at a more compromised time, they will themselves overcome these objections, without it becoming the deal breaker it can be.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch

What to read next: Why rejection is like gold dust

What to do next:  Sign up to my Selling Secrets http://www.home-truths.co.uk/selling-secrets

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What future for Britain’s high streets? | Letters https://t.co/Rlm1bMWVoH Solicitors & Estate Agents In One Just £899 + vat .. https://t.co/GmjoJxU3bM

What future for Britain’s high streets? | Letters https://t.co/Rlm1bMWVoH Solicitors & Estate Agents In One Just £899 + vat .. https://t.co/GmjoJxU3bM (via Twitter http://twitter.com/conveyandmove/status/1061680649487220737)

What future for Britain’s high streets? | Letters

Readers respond to news that the number of UK shops, pubs and restaurants lying empty has soared by more than 4,400 in the first six months of this year

The plight of retailers dominates debate about the high street (Decline of the high street gathers pace as thousands of stores close, 9 November), although I can’t imagine what “decisive action … to support the battered high street” the government is expected to provide. Certainly there’s no reverse gear to address the commercial affects of a transformation in shopping habits, and high streets will inevitably have to shrink back to a core of retail activity.

We need to look at this another way. Reviving high streets and town centres must be approached strategically and this begins with reinventing their role. We need high streets more than ever, but as places for people to meet and mingle throughout the day, not just to shop. Other uses must be mixed in: homes and live/work units, small offices and workshops, GP surgeries and dentists, barbers and hairdressers, youth clubs and day care centres, nurseries and primary schools, cinemas and music venues, cafes and pubs, street markets and pop-ups, independent and convenience shops. But not multiples of each. They need to have good transport links, free parking nearby, and become people-, bike- and buggy-friendly. In practice a degree of compulsory purchase might well be necessary to overcome the fragmented property ownership that inhibits any unified strategy.

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Cabin fever: the garden shed that became a stylish guesthouse https://t.co/rgWDfFC5T3 Solicitors & Estate Agents In One Just £899 + vat .. https://t.co/GmjoJxU3bM

Cabin fever: the garden shed that became a stylish guesthouse https://t.co/rgWDfFC5T3 Solicitors & Estate Agents In One Just £899 + vat .. https://t.co/GmjoJxU3bM (via Twitter http://twitter.com/conveyandmove/status/1061652954485321728)

Cabin fever: the garden shed that became a stylish guesthouse

Plans for a simple timber building grew into this Swedish-inspired Hackney hideaway

The exterior of writer and editor Alex Bagner’s new-build timber and glass family house, tucked behind a discreet gate at the end of a London Fields cul-de-sac, offers plenty of clues about the owner’s Swedish heritage: clean, simple lines, charcoal grey painted window frames, open plan, laid-back living. What you don’t expect, as you head to the back of the house, is the sight of a one-bedroom cabin at the corner of a triangular-shaped garden.

“We were living in Primrose Hill, but then decided we needed a change, so bought this place in Hackney three years ago,” explains Bagner who, alongside her husband Chris, owns and runs the recently opened Rose Hotel in Deal, Kent. What was an unoccupied, somewhat bland, property that had sat on the market for more than a year became, with Alex and her husband’s keen eye and taste, a characterful family home. However, missing from the house where they now live with their three young children was an extra room for family or friends to stay.

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Cabin fever: the garden shed that became a stylish guesthouse

Plans for a simple timber building grew into this Swedish-inspired Hackney hideaway

The exterior of writer and editor Alex Bagner’s new-build timber and glass family house, tucked behind a discreet gate at the end of a London Fields cul-de-sac, offers plenty of clues about the owner’s Swedish heritage: clean, simple lines, charcoal grey painted window frames, open plan, laid-back living. What you don’t expect, as you head to the back of the house, is the sight of a one-bedroom cabin at the corner of a triangular-shaped garden.

“We were living in Primrose Hill, but then decided we needed a change, so bought this place in Hackney three years ago,” explains Bagner who, alongside her husband Chris, owns and runs the recently opened Rose Hotel in Deal, Kent. What was an unoccupied, somewhat bland, property that had sat on the market for more than a year became, with Alex and her husband’s keen eye and taste, a characterful family home. However, missing from the house where they now live with their three young children was an extra room for family or friends to stay.

Continue reading...

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