Fix those minor defects

Start out front, cleaning, clearing and decluttering the yard to make a good impression on buyers. Photo / Getty

It's a rare house that doesn't have defects. Even newly renovated ones can have features that detract for buyers. But there are ways for sellers to deflect attention from them without pretending they're not there. The three main ways of dealing with defects are:

1.Fix them.

2. Draw the eye away from them.

3. Use them as a selling point.

Simple defects can be fixed easily, says Mark Trafford, a project manager who runs Maintain to Profit. Start out front. Overgrown bushes can be trimmed, or replaced with a few matching plants, old fences and front doors can be painted or stained, and the paths cleaned.

Do this even if a property is a do-up, says Real estate agent Paul Foster of Ironbridge.

"You want to give the impression that buyers can move into the house and chip away at the work in their own time."

If you have time and money, paint sills and eaves using accents, Trafford says.

Inside, the first thing buyers see is the hallway, which can be brightened up with a lick of paint. The neutral paint trick can also be used to paint over dated wallpaper, completely changing the look and feel of a tired house.

Bathrooms and kitchens are important to buyers, says Trafford, and the eye settles on vanities and benches. These can be resurfaced relatively quickly to give a modern look.

If the seller can't repaint or tile the bathroom home stager Anthea Baker of Homebase will bring in high quality matching towels, which become a feature in the room and draw the eye from the less than desirable walls and features. Nice vases and flowers will do the same.

Foster recommends replacing handles and knobs to draw attention away from the units themselves. This reduces the number of "I have to do this" thoughts in potential buyers' minds.

Baker says drawing the eye away from a multitude of sins is exactly "what I do".

"If you see an empty house the eye always goes to marks on the carpet and walls and this will lower the price expectation."

Her job is to draw the eye to the furniture and furnishings, create better flow, advise on decluttering, and make buyers feel the home would be a nice place to live in.

The other way to handle the property's defects is to raise them with the buyer before they see them, says Foster.

If the carpet is bad, for example, he would say: "Hey, they were going to replace the carpet but they decided it to leave it to you to choose a new carpet and priced it accordingly."

Finally, all three point out that good old fashioned elbow grease is essential in all properties to remove those sins that are simply cleanable.