How to get your house ready to sell: the full checklist

Almost everyone starts in the wrong place. They buy paint, or they book a photographer, or they start clearing one cupboard and lose a Saturday. The properties that market well are the ones where the work happened in a sensible order, so nothing had to be done twice.

1. Empty before you improve

Every hour spent painting around furniture is an hour wasted, and every photograph taken around clutter is a photograph that undersells the room. Clear first: surfaces, wardrobes, the spare room, the garage, the side return. Rooms read bigger empty, and buyers mentally move their own things in.

2. Fix the small faults

Buyers can't price a crack, so they price a fear. A dozen small unresolved faults tell a viewer the property hasn't been looked after, and that suspicion costs more than the repairs would have.

• Filled and sanded chips, cracks and picture holes
• Doors that stick, latch properly and don't drop
• Dripping taps, running loos, slow drains
• Silicone around baths and sinks — replaced, not scrubbed
• Every bulb working and matching in colour temperature
• Handles, hinges, sockets and switch plates that are all present and tight

3. Paint, and paint neutrally

Paint is the highest-return spend before a sale. A warm off-white on walls and clean white on ceilings and woodwork photographs best in most UK light. Skip the cool greys in north-facing rooms — they go flat and grey-blue on camera.

4. Floors

Clean before you replace. A professional carpet clean costs a fraction of new carpet and often gets you 80% of the way. Replace only where the carpet is stained beyond saving or where the room has a smell.

5. Outside space, whatever the size

A cut lawn, edged borders, a swept path and a clear front step change the first and last photograph in the listing. This is a day of work that reads as an upgrade.

6. Deep clean last, then photograph

The clean happens after everything else, not before, and the photographer comes the day after the clean. Book them in that order and you never show a room twice.

What to skip

• New kitchens and bathrooms — you rarely get the money back at sale
• Structural changes and knock-throughs
• Bold feature walls, statement wallpaper and anything to your taste
• Loft conversions started specifically for a sale

The goal isn't a beautiful home. It's a property with nothing in it for a buyer to argue with.

How long it takes

Doing it yourself, at weekends, most people take six to ten weeks. With one team on site working in the right order, it's under two weeks — which is the whole reason Presentable exists.