#PropertyReport: Looking after your investment

The headline might seem like an obvious statement, but when it comes to one’s own property I find many people do not safeguard their investment – or more accurately, do not do it enough and at the right time.

This is a relevant topic, because I believe many sellers haven’t got the price their homes should probably have achieved in recent months based on this significant aspect.

I want to emphasise the importance of maintaining the condition of your home.

Like last month’s article I want to explain what actually happens in practice, rather than getting stuck on what should happen in theory.

In reality, when prospective buyers look at a home and their hearts say this is a dwelling they could live in, sensible thinking may well override such positive emotions when they consider the amount of repair work that will need to be done on the house to make it “liveable”.

Suddenly they want to submit an offer but want to factor in the work they will need to do, and will over-estimate the cost.

In theory, however, the price has already been set, or reduced, to factor in the fact that the floors need redoing, the damp needs fixing, the cracks need to be filled and painted over.

And this would have been carefully explained to the buyers, but in reality they still want to factor it in as they just see a price for a property and what they need to spend on top of it.

So how do we counter this?

The answer is quite simple and relatively low cost: keep on top of your maintenance.

I am not actually talking about big items such as replacing kitchens and bathrooms, but rather repainting every five years, fixing a small problem before it becomes a big and expensive problem, maintaining the deck, the floors and the garden.

These are all continuous but inexpensive maintenance costs that will reap you rewards when you come to sell.

If every buyer who viewed your property had the impression that the property was “immaculate”, then you would not run into the problems that I have mentioned.

One might adopt the attitude of waiting until it is time to sell and then doing all the repair work in one go.

Firstly, this will require a high cost, once off payment, and secondly the delay is likely to result in you having to wait a month or two – critical, good selling months that you now lose out on.

In practice, what happens is the seller doesn’t then do the work that is necessary, puts the house on the market as is, and falls right into the trap that we are discussing.

In this scenario the seller must now expect lower offers than what they should potentially get.

Perhaps a good way to prove what I am saying is to look at it the other way around. Go ask your trusted agent about the 10 “best” prices they have ever secured.

And then ask them whether these were all immaculate houses or included those in need of some TLC?

I’d be surprised if any TLC properties make the top ten.

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