Selling a house in today’s market isn’t without it’s challenges but it seems some savvy vendors and developers are seeking extra help in order to make that all important first impression.
Fully Furnished, one of the UK’s leading providers of furnishing solutions to the property industry, has seen overall business double in the last year with 86% of all properties they have dressed being sold.
Alec Watt, Managing Director of Fully Furnished comments, "a shortage of buyers to the market has left those wishing to sell their properties in fierce competition and looking at ways they can entice buyers through the door and make that lasting first impression.
This is especially true at the upper end of the market where people have recognised that they may not be able to sell their properties as quickly as they had hoped. On average, estate agents usually sell approximately half of all instructions they take on and whilst it is not possible to change the location of your home, you can improve its saleability by changing its appearance.”
Fully Furnished maintain that preparing a property for sale or rent can be compared to designing a stage for a play, offering a property that sells itself as a home and not just a building, enables potential purchasers to envisage themselves living there. Alec adds “most properties will benefit from being furnished if done correctly and will generally sell faster and for a higher price than those that are unprepared and using natural tones and a clear layout will help present a room at its best potential.”
In support of this, Jo Prowse, Director of Chester Row comments “we always offer our properties furnished. We recently instructed Fully Furnished to dress a £6million property in Oxshott, Surrey. In this instance, due to the size of the property, leaving the space unfurnished would have made it very difficult for potential purchasers to imagine how best to work with the vast space. Over the period of August to December there were eight or nine competing houses on the same road, some of which were unfurnished, this property was the only one to sell.”
The design service offered by Fully Furnished differs from that of a traditional interior design practice, as Alec explains, "we work with some of the country’s top estate agencies and lettings agents who, in turn, suggest our service to clients that may need some extra help in the marketing process. We will create schemes which will help the property to sell or let, rather than work to the owner or landlord’s personal taste. Obviously, the speed at which a property sells or lets will always be predominantly lead by market conditions. However, based on our experience we have very few furniture rentals go beyond the three month minimum rental period that we require and properties are usually sold well within this timeframe.”
