Sell your house this Boxing Day! The most popular day for house hunting. (2024)

What to do on Boxing Day?

Look at houses on Rightmove apparently. This is why you should sell your house on Boxing Day.

Boxing Day sales

Boxing Day sales also applies to property. It is the most popular day of the year for buyer to search for a new house. Now we think about it, it makes perfect sense. After the hype of Christmas people start looking for their next adventure. For some people this is moving to a new house.

However, if you are to benefit from this, then you would either have been on the market for quite a while or have pictures with Christmas decorations up in the house. Let’s be honest neither really paint a pretty picture of a new adventure.

Tips for a Boxing Day publication

If you have in the back of your mind that you might want to move to a new house, do not delay. You are in control of your own house sale. Appoint an Estate Agent, get the photo’s produced before the Christmas Decorations go up, and tell your agent that you want your property set live on all portals on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is the last working day before Boxing Day, so it makes sense to do it this way.

Just adding your property to the Rightmove portal at the correct time is not all that is important when marketing your house, you should pay extra attention to the pictures, the price and the description that your Estate Agent attributes to your house. Ensure you see and sign off a draft version before anything is published online.

Price

You may feel tempted to go for a price which looks like it is value for money, for example £199,995 but please make sure you discus Rightmove price points with your agent before committing to this. By taking off £5.00 you could be putting your home on page 3 of the search results, and therefore missing out on key interested buyers. Do some research yourself. Ask yourself what price do you put into the search criteria? Most people add rounded values into their search, for example, £200,000 will appear closer to the top of the search than £199,995. It’s key to have the price as a whole number as people will search between two figures so they might have 200,000 to 300,000 so if you’re 199,995 you miss that range and therefore don’t get seen. You want your house to be seen first.

Pictures

These are the shop window for your home. This is what will entice a buyer more than anything to come and look at your property so please take note of these tips.

1. Switch all lights on / curtains / blinds open. Light is crucial for good photography.
2. All rooms to be clear of clutter and where possible de-personalise.
3. Use plants to brighten up images. Hanging plants are even better as they raise the eye level in a picture and leave workspaces clear to give the illusion of space.
4. Professional Photographers are essential to highlight the best features of your home.
5. No more than 8-10 pictures. You need to make your property appealing but enigmatic, so people ask to view it.
6. Think about the colour scheme in your home. If you have very bold colours, it would be worth painting all rooms a neutral colour. You need the buyer to be able to envisage themselves living in your home.

Description

Ask yourself why you live in your house, and what made you buy that house. Ensure that these aspects are added to the description because this is likely to help sell your home. It is useful for the agent to add capitals into the description, bold where possible. The reader needs to be engaged with the content. A good and bad example are below:

Good description

This is good because it is not again reiterating what the buyer has searched for. The likelihood is they have searched for a 4-bedroom house. The description begins with the position of the vendor. Chain Free is a big attraction when buying a house.

Bad description

This description, while it goes on to say it is in a lovely area or something similar, the first words are again reiterating what the buyer already knows. They have searched for a three bedroomed house, the title states a three bedroomed house, so the agent doesn’t need to begin the description with Three bed family home. Something unique about the property should feature in that first line to grab the buyer’s attention.

Key information

We appreciate that you may not use us to sell your home, but we want you to get the correct service and sell your home quickly. We have therefore created a document which you can download to guide you on how to prepare for the photographs of your home. It is no longer enough to just have your home on Rightmove, Zoopla or On the Market because there is so much competition on these portals.

Download our guide on how to prepare your home for professional photography below.

Page 1 HERE

Page 2 HERE

At Fowler and Fowell we are committed to providing a personal service when moving to a new house, hence our strapline ‘Moving Made Personal’ We are based in North Leeds. If you would like to discuss your home which is currently up for sale, put your house up for sale or would just like some guidance on the whole process, then please do not hesitate to contact us. Email: [email protected]

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The next blog in the series will be published in December. We will look at the motivation behind people moving to a new house, and assessing whether moving house is the right choice for everyone. Sign up here to receive blogs by email.

To view other blogs in our series click HERE.

We hope you have found this information useful, thank you for reading.

At Fowler and Powell we have built our business on customer service, developing relationships, and being a resource to everyone in the community.

Our passion is to deliver an exceptional personal experience, which is why we only take on a maximum of 8 properties per property expert. The whole premise of our business is to build trust based on integrity and service, we will only succeed and grow if we deliver.

To take the next step we are offering a full property audit, including a virtual valuation, tips on how to increase the value of your house with minimal spend and a financial review to help determine your property sale but also your purchase.