Some good advice for obtaining the best price for your home

1. Separate yourself. Decide to let go of your attachment to the house and look to the future in your new home.

2. Scrutinise. Go outside and stand in front of your house and imagine you are a buyer. Is the house welcoming and do you want to go inside? Arrange every room to make it look as attractive as possible to a potential buyer. Give it the ‘wow factor’.

3. First impressions count. Touch up the exterior paint, mow the grass, weed the borders, prune and generally tidy the garden.

4. Make minor repairs. Make sure you do all those little jobs you always meant to do like cracked tiles, leaking taps and replacing light bulbs. You might even consider repainting some of the rooms in neutral colours to hide the colours that seemed OK at the time.

5. Reduce the clutter. Anything you have not used in the last couple of years, you probably don’t need. Give everything you don’t want to a charity shop. This will also give you a head start on the packing. Box things up you don’t need in advance of the physical move. This has a double edged benefit as it reduces clutter and helps you sell the property.

6. Depersonalise. Pack up some of your personal photographs and belongings. Buyers want to imagine their own possessions to see themselves living there. However don’t pack all your personal effects as a property still needs to feel homely.

7. Sort out your cupboards. Buyers love to check out cupboards so make them neat and get rid of anything you don’t need.

8. Rent storage space. Have a really good look at every room and put any items of furniture that look too big or that are out of place into storage (or ‘borrow’ some space from friends or family). You can decide what to do with them after you have moved. It is important to make the rooms feel as spacious as possible.

9. Hide things you want to keep. If the buyer never sees them, they won’t want them included in the sale price!

10. Make it shine. Clean the windows inside and out, remove cobwebs and give the whole house a thorough vacuum and polish.