Making a great first impression is essential when selling your home – those first few seconds when the buyer sets eyes on your property create a lens through which they judge their entire experience.
Stories are common of buyers who don’t even stop their car when they see a dilapidated property, or one that has obviously not been maintained. And when you’re spending hard-earned cash on a marketing campaign, you need to keep every prospective buyer interested.
One feature of the home that’s key to creating an alluring first impression is the porch. It’s an underrated asset, and sellers should see their porch as a welcoming gateway to the rest of the home.
Dismissing it as an irrelevancy compared with the rest of the property is a serious mistake. An entryway that’s dirty, or cluttered with shoes or bicycles, is an immediate turn-off.
There are a few tips and tricks to creating a porch that offers a warm welcome.
If you’re preparing to sell your home, or even considering the possibility, here are some ideas to use your porch to lure buyers across the threshold and towards a purchase.
Less is more – It’s easy to get carried away with staging your porch, especially if your agent has given you guidance on making a first impression. However, do not clutter the porch as buyers love space.
Easy maintenance – A porch that features a dark color, such as a brown or burgundy, will ease the burden of keeping it clean. White porches show all the dirt, grime and marks of family life.
Furniture – Invest in hard-wearing materials for seats and tables. If you love the wooden look, you can’t go wrong with teak. For those on a tighter budget, some plastic wicker is long-lasting. Check out the quality of the metal in the structure. Marine-grade is the optimal quality.
Dressing up – In fall and winter, use pillows with earthy tones, such as ocher, browns and oranges, to capture the beauty of this time of year. These rich colors will add an extra dimension.
Bright lights – A porch always benefits from good lighting. It’s a great safety feature, of course, but it also offers a strong allure in late winter afternoons – a popular time for buyer walkthroughs.
Splash of color – Plants will soften the lines of your home, so long as you use planters and deploy them judiciously. If you plant some winter color, such as witch-hazel and hellebores, you’ll brighten your home during your sales campaign. Play around with how you might group your planters to enhance the visual impact.