Sell your Property Faster

Learn how to sell your property faster and at the best possible price. Selling your property quickly and at the highest price is the target for everyone looking to move. However, the reality can be quite different so it is important to give yourself the maximum opportunity to achieve both of these goals.

Image you are on the search for your perfect new home. Are you more likely to be interested in a property that is well presented, neutral colours throughout, and free of clutter with a tidy garden, or a property that is looking rather tired, with a collection of bright differently coloured uncoordinated rooms with floral carpeting alongside plenty of clutter? For some, the idea of a big DIY project is a challenge, but for many others it is their worst nightmare with the prospect of not being able to unpack their boxes for many months. With so many commitments in our everyday lives, many house movers want their new home to have that 'move in today' factor and this is worth remembering when you are trying to sell your property.

As much as we believe that our properties should be valued based on the bricks and mortar it is surprising what effect it can have if your property is well presented. We all know what it is like to view a brand new property with luxury fittings and contemporary furniture with that instant move in condition. This is the exact feeling that people want to feel when they view your property. Although they may not necessarily expect it in a re-sale property, you can improve your chances of a faster and more profitable sale if you can create the same new property feeling when they view your property for sale.

There are a number of different ways to achieve this. Firstly you could think about putting your furniture into storage and renting some new luxury furniture. Your buyers won't know it's rented but will just give them a better idea of how the property for sale could look and could give them a really good first impression. Remember, you only ever get one chance to make a first impression. You want to make sure that your property is the one that your viewers remember, but for all the right reasons. Alternatively, you could purchase new furniture for the property. If the buyers like the look that much, they may even consider buying it and negotiating this as part of the sale price. For a small investment, it could result in the sale you have been waiting for. And finally don't forget the exterior of the property. A well kept and maintained garden can in some cases reflect a 10% difference in sale price that can be achieved.

Being able to sell your property faster and at the best possible price also means that you should take time to consider how you market the property. If you decide to sell your property privately, this could save you a lot of money on selling agent fees. But make sure you select a good private sellers website that is targeted at your niche audience for the type of property you are trying to sell. Having a professionally produced for sale board at the property for sale can increase interest but if it is a board with cartoon type features and less corporate looking, take time to think how you would react. A good for sale board creates a professional image to your property for sale and if it is that professional, very few buyers would realize that it is a private sale.

And after you have tried all the above and you are still not securing the sale you need to move on, you can always consider renting it out and keeping it as a buy to let investment which would put you in a chain free position for your new purchase in the knowledge of having an investment property for the future. When you consider that average property prices double every 10-15 years, this can't be a bad idea. Learn more about buy to let

Jennifer Tweed is the founder of buytolet4sale.com, one of the UK's first property portals dedicated to all types of investment property for sale and everything you should need for your sale and purchase. Learn more about buy to let

There is something emotionally charged about the buying and selling of New York high-end real estate. How else to explain the juggernaut of reality TV shows about high-end brokers?

After 30 years of marriage, Sharon and Michael Newman decided it was finally time to move from the Catskills to New York City.

On blocks near Kissena Park streets are quiet, houses are small, and the electricity that charges the atmosphere in downtown Flushing is nowhere to be found.

A five-story, seven-bedroom house in Brooklyn Heights has sweeping views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline.

Demand is so intense that there are waiting lists in some buildings, and a few landlords report that eager renters are even bidding up rents.

Sales at the very high end of the market barely missed a beat in the recession. But that prosperity hasn’t yet trickled down.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

For a century, Roosevelt Island housed a grim penitentiary. It was demolished in the 1930s.

More borrowers are opting for fixed-rate loans with terms other than the standard 30 or 15 years, especially when it comes to refinancings.

Two more glass skyscrapers are added to a group of towers on the waterfront of Long Island City.

Insurance coverage for a co-op unit; when a tenant is ‘blacklisted’; a co-op is smaller than estimated.

The market for $500,000-to-$600,000 houses in Westchester has become especially active.

A shaky real estate market means more sellers are providing buyer concessions, from gift cards to help with paying property taxes.

Houses of worship are adaptable to residential and other uses as congregations dwindle.

The settlement reached last week over questionable mortgage practices by major American banks hardly cracks the iceberg that is the foreclosure mess.

Under the settlement, nearly two million Americans could benefit from mortgage relief from the nation’s biggest banks.

A cold war-era satellite relay station is for sale in California after a Silicon Valley mogul gave up on plans to turn it into a weekend home.

How can I make my front porch more appealing to buyers?

Court hearings meant to protect New York homeowners from foreclosure are hopelessly slowed by endless paperwork and requests for additional information.

The Bay Area and Silicon Valley expect the windfall from the Facebook stock offering to make their in-demand region even hotter.

The house, designed by the architect Eric Fisher, looms over the street like a big industrial arm.

A town house in Dallas, a midcentury modern in Rhode Island and a Tudor in Denver.

Prices in some parts of the country are still off by as much as 25 percent from their 2007 peak.

Trinity Church is the largest landlord in Hudson Square and is part of the effort to rezone the area to residential from manufacturing.

Rising oil prices and a boom in shale exploration are leading companies to add office space in the Houston area, most notably Exxon Mobil.

Ms. de França is the president and chief executive of Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, which focuses on new residential developments.

Meet the real estate broker’s interns: an ambitious group willing to do anything, earn nothing and wake up early on a Sunday to fluff the couch cushions at open houses.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

Homes in Dallas, Rhode Island and Denver.

Compare the cost of renting and buying equivalent homes.

For recently divorced men, a new breed of decorators offers help navigating a strange new world.

Plants that light up the winter garden can be found at Broken Arrow Nursery in Connecticut, which has long been a favorite of gardening geeks.

A sister in need drew the painter Beverly McIver back home to North Carolina, unaware that a new beginning was in store for both of them.

A jewelry designer finds striking new objects for storage.

Timothy Sakamoto and Jochen Repolust are part of the small but growing niche making mobile apps focused on specific works of architecture.

To promote an auction of 20th- and 21st-century design, the interior designer Stephen Sills has created a preview exhibition in an apartment at the Apthorp.

Fishs Eddy now sells plates acquired from the archives of the now-defunct Syracuse China Corporation, many more than 100 years old.

The designer Russell Greenberg creates custom baby rattles with ends shaped like profiles of mom and dad.