Buying a home is a tough job. Select a home that matches your dream home entirely is more stringent, and it becomes hard to find such a home.
When buyers begin their property search, they usually have a wish list of their new house features. A large garden, quiet location, five bedrooms, a lovely fireplace, or an en-suite are top requirements for many buyers. The more ticks a property has on their wish list, the more inclined they are to make an offer.
However, there are a few rooms in a house that are more likely to win over viewers’ hearts than others. The important question is, which room convinces you to buy?
The kitchen is the King place of the home. Generally, if you can win them over in the kitchen, chances are the rest of the home won’t be too difficult. Unlike other parts areas of the home, your return on investment in the kitchen has a greater chance of bringing the value of your home up. Open modular kitchens with dining area make the perfect place for every home. People can sit, cook, eat and talk together. The kitchen is also considered the most expensive room in the house, especially well equipped with good quality appliances. Unlike other parts areas of the home, your return on investment in the kitchen has a greater chance of bringing the value of your home up.
When buying a home, the buyer will look at the kitchen size, with star rated electric appliances, countertops with granite are enough to grab the potential buyer’s attention. Making the kitchen priority for home buyers while buying a home or finalising a rental home.
The first place buyer would see while entering your home is the hallway. It should be spacious and organised and paint with light colour. On the day of viewing (by buyers), you can enlighten the scented candles and air fresheners, giving a sense of a good place for them. Ideally, it is a place to welcome guests to have an attractive hall where they can relax and even put a plant inside the living room.
A room with a view is always a great selling point for buyers. A room with a gallery or balcony where people can sit and take advantage of the fresh area with a great view. To appeal to buyers instantly, create living rooms that look like you want to stay awhile and enjoy the home. This is the room that stands out the most for some people and could convince them to buy.
The interesting thing is that well-fitted, spacious bathrooms are trendy at the moment. This leads us to the fact that the master bath is almost as important as the kitchen from a buyer’s perspective.
These are the rooms with their unique feature that convince buyers to buy the home. If you are still confused about which room you should improve first to sell your home, look at your home as if you were going to buy it and make a list of what would be a major turn off and what would appeal to you.
Contact me today and see how I can help you with your home and move.
2020 was undoubtedly a year that took many of us by surprise. With the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit negotiations coming to a close, the UK housing market has been through its ups and downs.
The first lockdown saw significant restrictions on the market. In the summer, the Chancellor announced a Stamp Duty holiday, leading to a surge in demand and, therefore, in house prices. When we hit the second lockdown in October, home moves could go ahead, meaning growth continued to be strong through to the end of the year.
Home move comparison site reallymoving.com has revealed ten statistics that together tell the story of UK home movers during 2020. The data is based on 910,000 quotes generated on the site throughout the year.
So, here is who moved and when, how far they went and what it all cost.
The busiest day of the year for moving home is usually the last Friday in August, but in 2020 it was Friday 18th December, the last Friday before Christmas. Every Friday in December apart from Christmas Day were all among the top 10 busiest days to move in 2020 for the first time.
The median distance moved by UK homebuyers in 2020 was 10 miles, an increase of 1 mile from the 2019 average. The general trend was for movement to less densely populated locations within urban areas, such as the outskirts of the towns and cities where people already live, rather than to rural villages and hamlets.
The Top 5 locations where the most properties were bought in 2020 were: London (13.7%), Leeds (1.7%), Birmingham (1.6%), Bristol (1.6%) and Leicester (1.3%). By region, the South East of England saw the most home mover activity.
Between July-December 2020, the proportion of First Time Buyers fell by 12% compared to the same period in 2019. Over the year, First Time Buyers made up 51% of all buyers int the market, compared to 56% in 2019.
While 16% of First Time Buyers opted for a new build home over an older property, almost half of those (46%) used a Help to Buy Equity Loan, enabling them to buy with a deposit of just 5%.
The average house price in England and Wales increased from £293,819 in January 2020 to £352,239 in December 2020, as buyer activity surged post-lockdown.
Home movers sold their homes for an average price of £313,149 and purchased for an average price of £379,191. First Time Buyers paid an average price of £262,180 for their first home.
The proportion of First Time Buyers in England liable to pay stamp duty fell from 25% to just 5%, following the announcement of a stamp duty holiday from 8th July 2020.
The cost of moving home (buying and selling at the same time) plummeted by 39% in 2020 from an average of £10,911 before the stamp duty holiday came into effect to £6,669 after, making 2020 the cheapest time to move in decades.
However, certain costs, such as legal fees, rose due to being directly tied to increasing house prices. Those buying and selling a home typically paid £1,682 in legal fees (+15%) post-stamp duty holiday, including expenses and disbursements, while First Time Buyers paid £1,100 on average (+11%).
The property market took us on a rollercoaster in 2020; it has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the past 12 months. However, through it all, the sector has shown its strength and resilience.
Looking back at the housing market over the course of 2020, there’s a lot to be optimistic about despite the challenging year. Property as a long-term investment is seen as a more stable option than stocks and shares and other more volatile assets. During the year, there was even an increase in demand from first-time buy-to-let investors and landlords.
Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed many sectors’ landscape, but the UK housing market has continued to show its resilience. This year of adversity has further illustrated the market is solid and adaptable.
Contact me today and see how I can help you with your home and move.
The Property Nightmares That Can Knock The Value Of Your Home.
They say you can fall in love with a property in under seven seconds. However, newly released research from Yes Homebuyers shows how you could be in trouble if you can’t see significant issues with your new home. Many things factor into how much your home is worth, such as the location, the square footage, the school district and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Although several of those parameters aren’t easily changed, some are under a homeowner’s control.
Britons love dreaming about their future homes, especially when it comes to redecorating. But sometimes, even Britons’ dream houses can be impacted by property issues beyond their control. Japanese Knotweed, subsidence and flood risks can all have a significant impact on property value.
Research by home buying platform, Yes Homebuyers, looked at 11 of the most common property nightmares, how much they can devalue your home, and what it costs to remedy them.
Subsidence came out on top as the number one property issue.
Subsidence is the number one nightmare for homeowners, and any structural damage is likely to deter buyers completely. If it doesn’t, you can expect to see your property devalued by as much as -20%; that’s over £50,000 on the current UK average of £251,500.
Japanese Knotweed is the most commonly covered homeowner nightmare and comes in a close second, with the destructive plant causing a -15% drop in the value of your home. That’s nearly £38,000 wiped off when you come to resell if you don’t get rid. Click here to learn more about selling a house with Japanese Knotweed.
While we all search for good connectivity in this modern age, living too close to a powerline, mobile phone tower, or wind turbine can be a bad thing when we come to sell. When it comes to selling your home, if one of them has been erected nearby, you could see the value of your home drop by as much as 13 per cent (£32,695). Similarly, a new power station within view can also cause a -5% drop in the value of your home.
Living in a known flood risk area with the potential risk of water damage could see the value of your home fall by around £25,150 (-10%).
Not maintaining your garden is also another deterrent for buyers. An untidy garden could reduce the value of your home by as much as 8.2% (£20,623) of your home.
Other more minor structural issues ranked as the next biggest nightmare, causing a 5.4% reduction in value (£13,581), while nuisance neighbours can also see your property fall by -5% in value (£12,575). To have someone nice next door can positively affect a home’s price by 9.4%, or £19,856.
While a pain to rectify, damp (-1%), asbestos (-1%) and woodworm (-0.5%) have a far lower impact on the value of your property.
In the most serious cases of subsidence and Japanese Knotweed, homeowners can see thousands wiped off in value, and this can also be the case for external factors such as new mobile phone towers and flooding. These challenges can not only reduce the value of your home but can also make it a struggle to find a buyer at all.
Contact me today and see how I can help you with your home and move.
In Celebration To International Women’s Day, I Thought I Would Ask The Question “Do Women Make Better Estate Agents Than Men?”
And just so you know, I’m not asking the question to illicit controversy for controversy’s sake. And I’m not asking it with the intent to bash males or bash male real estate agents.
Then why am I doing this, you ask? Well, why the heck not?! This is seriously interesting, not to mention fun. And you thought rent vs buy was a great debate. Well, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Let’s discuss. But allow me to, first and foremost, declare that this conversation doesn’t at all change my infinite respect for male agents, and I have had the great pleasure of being on the other side of sales transactions with some of them.
But, as much as I love buying up listings and selling my properties to these individuals, this blog post is about women. So, once again, let’s discuss.
Listening skills
Telling is not selling. In other words, it’s more important to listen than to talk if you’re a real estate agent. A study says that men listen with only one side of their brains while women use both to listen. Another study noticed that parts of the female brain linked to emotions, calculating risks, and the ability to listen were more prominent. There is further evidence that men are more likely to be action-oriented listeners, while women are more likely to be people-oriented listeners.
Emotional energy
To be fair, most females elicit a certain sweetness. The very feelings that many females are judged for having are the ones that make us open and approachable. Some women would even hug their clients and probably ask them about their weekend or how they feel at some point. Women genuinely consider themselves invested in the other person’s well-being. There is a reason why males struggle to master the softer skills of women. They are part of a robust masculine society that sets people up to be tough and suck it up, so feminine qualities are not OK for guys to have. Yet they are valuable things in sales.
Romantic priming
A halfway attractive female with a brain and some confidence can charm a man, any man. Romantic priming became effective when considered a tie-breaker. So basically, if two agents are competing for a listing with the same skill and offering set, the person who can create the romantic priming effect may have an advantage when asking for the sale. And this is not about women scooping up male clients because they think she’s hot. It’s about the effect that being genuinely charming has.
Emotional intuition
Women are commonly believed to have stronger intuition than men. That is why it is called women’s intuition and not men’s intuition. Men’s brains are neurologically wired to be more logical, and therefore more effective at linking perception with action. When it comes to real estate, better people skills equal happier clients, better relationships with other agents, better ability to read the body and emotional language of those clients and agents. It is also quicker to pick up on motivating factors when it comes to sale and negotiation.
Performance
According to Forbes magazine, quoting UK government research, “firms with more women on their boards “outperform their rivals with a 42% higher return on sales, 66% higher return on invested capital and 53% higher return on equity. Other research has found that teams which involve women are more intelligent than teams made up of men alone.”
Longer-term
Research shows that women are better than men at taking a longer-term perspective. Whilst a male agent might focus on the job at hand; his female colleague might be considering it in the broader context of the business as a whole, which might reveal other opportunities.
After reading through these thoughts and facts, are you surprised? Are women better real estate agents?
In the end, it comes down to the individual. Scientific studies may suggest that women may be better listeners, sweeter, less intimidating, more charming, and determined. Still, like any advantage, if the advantage is not used, it ceases being an advantage, especially when we know that our industry is full of males with tremendous sales skills and proven results.
On a final note – if you’re looking for a good-listening, sweet, charming, sharp and not too intimidating real estate agent, contact me today!
Liana Loporto-Browne MNAEA President. More than just an estate agent.
Buyer’s remorse is the feeling of regret you get after making a purchase
Buyer’s remorse typically happens after BIG purchases. The most common are buying a house or buying a car.
While most people aspire to become homeowners, research has revealed that around 80% of people who have purchased a property have at least one noteworthy regret regarding their home buying decision. Buying a property is often the largest financial decision a person is likely to make in their lifetime.
Why do so many people have something they regret after they buy a home? According to data, it takes people an average of 38 minutes to decide on the home they want to buy. Around two-thirds of home buyers will view a property twice, while some will view the property just once before making an offer. Making a large financial decision in less time than it takes to prepare the average dinner could result in a few issues.
You loved your future home when you signed the contract to purchase it, but suddenly you’re not sure if you made the right decision. Hundreds of questions run through your mind. What if you acted too quickly and a better house comes on the market next week? What if you paid too much? What if something happens to your finances and you can’t make your house payments? Most questions are simple and easily answered, but sometimes doubt creeps in and makes you uncertain if you want to proceed with the purchase.
Buyer’s remorse is hard-wired into our brains, so you might never be able to avoid it fully. Unless there’s a valid reason for concern, your state of mind might simply be a standard case of homebuyer’s remorse. A house is the most expensive thing most people ever buy, so it’s common to want to be sure you’ve purchased the right one.
You can do things to make better financial decisions and lessen the regret you feel after big purchases. These few tips will help you avoid buyer’s remorse or limit it after purchase.
Separate the needs from the wants
Aside from things like marriage or having kids, buying a house is the most significant decision an average person will make. Before you set out looking for the ideal property, make a list of what you need and what you want. Make an exact, definitive list of the things you would like to have and the things you need to have in order to be happy in your home. Once you’ve seen a property you want, review the list. It’s natural to worry that there might be a better property out there somewhere, but if you know that the property you have chosen fulfils all your ‘must-haves’ for a happy home, you’ll feel reassured.
Keep focused
It’s essential to remain focused on your must-haves and not get distracted by your wants. A property might tick many of the boxes on your wants list, but it can’t be the right home if it does not meet your primary objectives. You will probably stay in the property for at least a few years, and that means dealing with your compromises for a long time. It is better to make the right decision upfront than have to deal with living in a home that just isn’t right.
Look at your finances
Often one of the main reasons that buyers have regrets is the unexpected costs of owning a property. Calculate what you can afford considering all costs such as council tax, insurance, service charge, maintenance and ground rent if the property is leasehold. Make sure to know all list of expenses that you can expect to pay when purchasing a home.
Talk to your real estate agent
We tend to think more about uncertainties when we make significant commitments, so sometimes we just need a little reassurance, and that’s one of many things your agent is there for during this period. Your agent can answer any lingering questions you have, as well as address any concerns or doubts you might be dealing with. Take help from everyone involved in your transaction.
Trust your gut
Remorse sometimes kicks in after we start talking to others about a new house. They usually mean well, but it’s not uncommon for family and friends to question your choice and what you paid, especially if it’s your first home purchase and they consider themselves to be seasoned pros.
But consider the source. They might not know the market because it.s been years since they bought a property themselves. They might even live in another part of the country, in an area where housing costs a fraction of what you can expect to pay at your location. When family and friends offer such input, you can listen, but trust your gut, and as long as you did your due diligence, you should be on solid ground, regardless of what anyone else has to say.
Check out area
Something buyers often forget to consider is the area itself. What are your new neighbours like? If you relish peace, you need to know that your neighbours are not the loud family of six or a house full of partying students. It’s also a good idea to investigate local planning permission.
Choose the right solicitor
A solicitor or conveyancer will handle all the legal aspects of buying a home. It is crucial to work with a solicitor you trust and feel comfortable with, rather than one you have been forced into using by the agent. A good solicitor will ensure you are kept informed and help guide you through the home buying process.
Stop looking at other houses
If you’re continuing to look at other houses, that’s a big mistake. When you’re under contract to buy a home, looking at other homes as they hit the market can only fuel that buyer’s remorse and make you question your decision even more. Try to stop following the property market as soon as your offer is accepted; you’ll be better off for it.
For homeowners experiencing buyer’s remorse, merely acknowledging that it’s a common experience can help you understand why you feel this way. Instead of obsessing over your regrets, give yourself credit for all the things you got right with your home purchase.
And remember, as common as home buyer’s remorse can be – this, too, shall pass. And then you’ll be living in a place that’s all your own!
To find a home you won’t regret contact me today.
Liana Loporto-Browne MNAEA President. More than just an estate agent.
