Author Archives: Sam

Playing music to put someone in the mood for buying isn’t new. Retailers use it, hotels and even hairdressers employ background music to influence our behaviour. It can be quite literal: fast music makes us move quicker, and slower tunes help us relax, and browse. Music can be a very powerful sales tool.

Music can also help us to make an emotional connection. You only have to catch a few bars of a song you haven’t heard in years and you are instantly transported back to a place and time when it was embedded into your memory.

How do we use music to sell our home to a viewer?

Firstly, make sure the music fits not just your home, but the person viewing it. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know how important it is to understand your buyer. If you can determine the most likely person to buy your home, you’ll know the best type of music to play.

Keeping the music choices relatively neutral, but fitting, here are some of my suggestions:

First-time buyers – Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars
30-45 year old upsizers – David Gray, Adele, James Blunt
45-60 year old downsizers – Michael Buble, Luther Vandross
Retirees – Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Nina Simone

Secondly, make sure the music itself is down-tempo, and played at a discreet and relaxing volume. You’re trying to put your viewer at ease, not force them to shout!

Next, choose the music to suit the season. Some songs are naturally more sunny, while some feel cosier for wintry evenings.

Lastly, plan ahead and make sure it doesn’t run out during the viewing. A CD is usually around an hour long, so put it on repeat, or use an iPod to play it through, perhaps creating a longer playlist.

Music can be your best friend when you’re selling your house. Use it to set the mood, connect with your viewer, and create the perfect browsing atmosphere for your home, and you might just have an offer before the fat lady sings.

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.

Do you have a Smartphone?

The chances are, your buyer does! Research just out shows that 28% of us now are using a mobile device as our primary internet connection. The fact that your buyers may be conducting their property searches on their phone, means that your main photograph, or your ‘leading image’ is more important than ever.

This is what the newest version of Rightmove’s iPhone app looks like:

And here’s how the search results appear:

As you can see, the images are tiny, in fact, they measure just 1cm by 1.5 cm, unless the browser clicks on your listing to view further details, in which case the image even then only measures 3cm x 4cm.

What does this mean for you, the seller? How do you ensure that your property can be seen effectively on today’s Smartphones?

Here’s what you need to take into account:

Make sure your main image is the front of your house. Your buyer may well want to drive past, and they need to be able to recognise your property from the main photo.

Get close-up – there’s no point in having a photograph of your home taken from across the fields – no one is going to be able to make out your house on a phone.

Make sure it’s well-lit and taken on a blue-sky day. It’s only tiny, so make sure your photo has real punch!

Make the description count. Unlike the property portals and estate agents’ websites, the Smartphone description is limited to only around 40 – 50 words, so they’ve got to be good! Don’t let your agent use waffle or preamble, make every word count, and better still, lead with a dynamic headline.

Test it out yourself. Don’t leave it to the agent to advise you; this is very new technology and the way in which buyers search for property changes constantly. Check on your own Smartphone (or borrow someone else’s!) and judge for yourself if your house stands out above the competition.

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.

Even if you have the perfect house, if people don’t cross the threshold you won’t sell them the property. So perfect pictures are the vital starting point.

It is important to be aware of not only what is in a picture – but what is not in a picture. If there are gaps in what a buyer expects to see they will assume the worst. Why is there no picture of the kitchen or front of the home?

Particularly the front of the house – it is the equivalent of the front cover of a book to a reader. If you don’t have this shot, the buyer will wonder why not – does the house need a lot of work? Is it in a bad area or next to an eyesore like an electricity pylon?

Remember – research indicates there can be up to 15 people driving by your home for a quick look for every person that actually visits and you need to convert them into viewings. The front of the house does not have to be the main picture in your brochure if it is not the best but it does need to be there.

The same is true for the kitchen – this is often the main selling feature of a home and has to look good. Even if yours is not the best, give it a good tidy and de-clutter to make it look spacious and clean. The picture will not be nearly as bad as the imagination of a house proud buyer will make it if there isn’t one at all.

Other key no-nos include pets in pictures – they may be a full member of your family with their own chair at the dining table but they are not for your buyer. Even if a buyer is cat-crazy or doggy-dippy, they cannot be offended by a house that doesn’t have pets, but someone who dislikes animals will be put off by evidence of moggies or pooches as they start to mentally add up the costs of recarpeting, deep cleaning and repairing the imagined damage.

It is amazing how many buyers lack imagination –so do their job for them and ensure your pictures are bright, airy and crisp and show the buyer the very room they could be relaxing in.

Do you get Sam’s Selling Secrets? They’re free! Get yours here www.home-truths.co.uk/selling-secrets

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.

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