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One
of the main reasons I wanted to sell my last house
was because of the smell. It was an old
semi-detached home, and our neighbours had a
basement kitchen where they did a lot of cooking.
The gourmet food they cooked may have smelled great
to them, but the odours that leaked and lingered
into our house were not pleasant for us. A new poll
by Royal LePage shows that the odour of a home has a
huge impact on buyers' decisions about whether to
buy a home. The idea of "staging" a home
to make it look attractive to buyers has become
popular during the last decade, with many new home
staging companies offering advice about how to make
the house more attractive to buyers. The poll says
that while appearance and cleanliness are important,
53 per cent of buyers said strong odours such as pet
and cigarette smells had a stronger impact on their
impression of a home than overall tidiness and
cleanliness, strong wall colours, or an outdated
facade and landscaping. "Often, people who
smoke or who have pets are so accustomed to the
smells that they don't notice it," says Diane
Usher, a senior manager for Royal LePage. "We
always recommend that our sellers get a second
opinion of their home to know how potential buyers
may see it."
The poll, conducted by Maritz Research for Royal
LePage, shows that renovations can improve the value
of a home, but if they are in "too much of a
unique style," they can be detrimental when it
comes time to sell, says Royal LePage. Men were more
concerned than women about the décor, with 41 per
cent of men saying that they would be willing to pay
a premium for an updated décor, while only 30 per
cent of women said they would pay the premium.
Overall, more than a third of potential buyers said
they would pay more for a home with an updated décor.
"As the real estate market begins to moderate
in many markets across the country, the need to
impress buyers becomes even more crucial," says
Usher. "A combination of the right renovations
with modern and tasteful décor is the best way to
do that." There's no doubt that the kitchen is
the heart of the home, and the fastest way to the
hearts of home buyers. Seventy-nine per cent of
buyers said they would be willing to pay a premium
for a home with a renovated kitchen. But when asked
if they would still pay a premium if the kitchen was
renovated in a style that was not to their taste,
less than half of those who originally said they
would pay the premium were still likely to do so.
"The way you live in your home is not the way
to sell your home," says interior designer
Timothy Badgley of Acanthus Interiors in Port Hope,
Ont. In a Royal LePage release about the findings of
the survey, Badgley says, "Not all renovations
are created equal. Style and décor are especially
important with large renovations, as these features
will be costly to change for a buyer and they can be
a major factor in buying decisions." While it's
common to see houses undergo major renovations
shortly after a new owner moves in, most buyers say
they would prefer to buy a house that doesn't need
work. Sixty-three per cent of those surveyed said
they would buy a higher-priced home that does not
require renovations, rather than a lower-priced
fixer-upper. But the poll also found that 65 per
cent of buyers thought it would cost more than
$5,000 to update a newly purchased home to their
tastes, and 57 per cent said they wanted to do that
within six months of moving in. When we moved out of
our semi to a new detached home, the house we bought
was vacant. We liked viewing the empty rooms and
deciding how to decorate it from scratch, but
interior designer Badgley says that generally,
vacant homes are harder to sell than those with
furniture.
"People often mistakenly think that viewing
empty properties will give them an accurate sense of
the space available, but, in fact, it's hard to
really understand the size of a room without
furniture and other objects as reference
points," he says. An empty room allows buyers
to focus on negative details instead of getting a
sense of the overall space and the flow of each room
to the next." He says in oddly shaped spaces,
it can be hard for buyers to visualize furniture
arrangements. "We see a real trend emerging in
staging empty condominium projects," he says.
"The newer units tend to have much smaller
spaces and buyers often have a hard time visualizing
how their furniture will fit. Staging really helps
buyers envision themselves in the space." Royal
LePage has created a quiz for sellers called,
"What kind of homeowner are you?". By
taking the quiz and answering some questions about
the way you live in your home and how you describe
your house, you can get an idea of how much work it
will be to prepare the house to appeal to potential
buyers. The site also includes tips for preparing
your house for sale.
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