Architect Yvonne Haber shares how she designed one family home with a view to the future.
Getting your home ready for sale? You might be wondering whether you should be doing this or that to it or just leaving everything as it is.
The thing to remember before you make any changes is that you are, essentially, selling a product – and that product will appeal to particular types of buyers.
Depending on your property’s location, these might include; families with young children, families with older children, solo parents with children, retirees, young couples, students and so on.
Identifying a property’s target market is one of the first things I talk over with my clients when they are planning to sell – even if not for a few more years. There’s a lot more to renovating your property to max your sales price than making it look pretty.
It’s obviously beneficial to make your property look great, but it’s equally important (if not, more so) that your property ticks your buyer’s ‘functionality’ boxes. You can make some small and often inexpensive modifications that will really appeal to your particular target audience or audiences, and therefore attract more interested buyers.
By making your property more suitable for your target audience, prospective buyers can see themselves moving in and living there without the need to make any changes before doing so – and this is particularly appealing to families and retirees.
The first step is to work out who your target market is. This may be very obvious to you or you might need to do a little more digging. An obvious example would be if you have two primary schools within a kilometre radius of your home, your target audience will probably be families with young children. If your target market isn’t so evident or clear cut, have a look on the Suburb Profiles pages here on Domain or talk to a couple of local real estate agents.
Once you know who your target market is, have a think about the way these people live and the types of needs they might have. You might like to make a list of these things. It can also be a good idea to look at some ‘sold’ listings online for your area to identify what features the priciest properties had.
Depending on the level of renovation or tweaking you’re planning to do anyway to improve the aesthetics of your property, there are plenty of ways to make it just that little bit more appealing to buyers. Here are a few options to think about and add to:
There may be a few things on your target audience ‘wants and needs’ list that you cannot fulfil. However, if you can modify your property just a bit to meet a few more of their needs, you will be creating a property that could be a lot more in demand.
Jane Eyles-Bennett is renovation mad and has been a professional designer for 23 years. She was a renovation designer on the TV series Property Climbers, winner of several interior design awards and design consultant to over 600 property owners in the past nine years.
Have a renovation or design topic idea? Contact Jane at jane@hotspaceconsultants.com or via her website.