Avoid being the target of comments about the state of your home from certain house guests with these tips for sprucing up your home.
If passive aggressive statements regarding the state of your home is something you’ve come to expect from certain holiday house guests, then you might be in for a few jaw clenching days this festive season – especially if you’ve invited them to stay for a few nights.
“For those unfortunate homeowners with in-laws, parents, older siblings or even friends of very particular standards, it might be helpful to view their visit as if they were potential buyers coming to view your home. This might help you embody the mindset of a seller, going through your home with a fine-tooth comb as if you were preparing your property for a sale,” says Regional Director and CEO of RE/MAX of Southern Africa, Adrian Goslett.
Below are a few items you could pull from a seller’s to-do list in order to make sure your home is up to scratch to impress any picky visitors you might be entertaining this holiday season:
Make Your Home Picture Perfect
“Just as a seller stages their home for listing photographs, homeowners should go through each room in their homes and make sure that everything looks picture-perfect. Unless your guests are the kind to open cupboards, a surface-level clean-up should serve you well enough in this regard. However, you might want to pull out the good sheets and the fancy cutlery and crockery for the duration of their visit,” Goslett advises.
Tiny Touch-Ups
“Like potential buyers, picky house guests have a way of spotting every crack and paint chipped corner. It might be worth fixing any small issues you’ve learnt to live with, like the squeaky cupboard door and the crack in your bedroom ceiling, long before your guests arrive (and are able to complain about the smell of lingering paint fumes),” says Goslett.
Get Out of the Way
“Just as homeowners are advised to do when viewers come to see the property, try and get out of the house as much as you can over the duration of their visit. Take your visitors out for lunch and go tour the town a bit – especially if they’re out of towners, they’ll appreciate the change of scenery. It will also help if you have a spacious guest bedroom with its own laptop or TV setup so your guests won’t mind spending some downtime in their own rooms,” Goslett advises.
If their complaints prove too much to bear, Goslett suggests that it might be worth investigating the possibilities of finding a new home in the new year. “Sometimes the comments critical house guests make emulate your own misgivings about your property that you’ve simply chosen to ignore to avoid the hassle of putting your home on the market. At RE/MAX, we turn your hassle into our hustle and have a proven track record of taking homes from sale to sold in the fastest amount of time and at the highest possible price. If your house guests bring you to the point of sticking a ‘For Sale’ sign in your own front garden, then I recommend that you get in touch with one of our agents to help you sell fast and find a home that will silence all criticisms they might have against your current property in time for their next visit during the 2019 holiday season,” Goslett concludes.
