Are you prepared for the countdown to Christmas?

Tinsel is shimmering in the supermarket aisles, Christmas adverts are interrupting our favourite TV shows, and with shopping days rapidly disappearing, we definitely know that the festive season is fast approaching.  If you’re thinking of moving or letting in the New Year, we need to ask if you’re prepared for the countdown to Christmas?Christmas is the season to be jolly, but it is also the time when thousands of people start to search for a new home.  In fact, the property website Rightmove announced in January 2016 that they had received 31m page views on Boxing Day, rising to 44m on December 30^th.  These figures alone are incredible, yet they rose by a further 5% last year.It’s hard to imagine that while many of us are tucking into our left-over turkey or trying to survive the chaos of the sales, many have set their minds on even bigger sights.  January is typically a very busy month for house-hunters, and we always see a surge in buyers and tenants around this time.This is why if you’re planning to sell or let your property in the New Year, you need to start getting prepared. Do you want to miss out on the millions viewing online?Contacting us today to gain an understanding of your home’s potential is the first step.  Just because you’re getting the ball rolling in November, doesn’t mean that you have to be available for viewings; we can actually get everything ready for the marketing of your property now, and delay its launch.To prepare your home for sale, you may wish to consider a big de-clutter of your home - and what a perfect time to do it.  Before all those gadgets and novelty items start bursting out of your cupboards, create some space in advance. We all have stuff that we don’t really need, and getting rid of it now will make your life easier and less stressful when it’s time to pack for moving home.Photographing your property before you put up your Christmas decorations ensures that any potential buyer is focused on your home and not the colour scheme of your Christmas tree.  Seasonal photos can also be off-putting in January when people are trying to look to the year ahead.  You want all of the attention of potential buyers and tenants to be on your property and its assets.Our appraisal will help you to understand what your home is worth, enabling you to plan your next step.  It will give you time to organise a mortgage in principle so that you’re in the best possible position when it’s time to make that all important offer on a new home.Don’t worry about viewings interrupting your plans; we can hold these off until ‘normal life’ resumes again.  This allows you to enjoy your Christmas and New Year to the full, decorating your home to make it as grotto-tastic as you like, whilst also taking full advantage of the opportunity to have your home marketed to the biggest audience of the year.If you want to get prepared for the Christmas countdown, give our team a call today.