Selling Your Home at Christmas? Let the Buyers Follow Their Noses
December and January – AKA Christmas and New Year – have long been seen as the quietest periods on the estate agent’s calendar. Everyone’s more concerned with buying presents, staying at home in the warmth and then furiously tightening their belts after the main event.
However, if you do find yourself with a property on the market at Yuletide, don’t uproot the For Sale sign and use it for firewood just yet, as there is a sense of hope. Or rather, a scents of hope (sorry), as you can use seasonal smells to encourage buyers. The long hours of darkness, rain and cold can mean your property doesn’t look its best, but you can appeal to that other vital sense, smell, very easily indeed.
Get your bake on
Nothing says Christmas quite like freshly-baked gingerbread biscuits and if you’re a dab hand in the kitchen, get busy if you have a viewing booked. Mix up a large batch of gingerbread dough and keep it in the fridge, ready to whip it in the oven. You can even cut out dough shapes, stack them in greaseproof paper and keep them in the freezer, ready for action. Just seven minutes in the oven and you might have a seasonal sale!
A berry good idea
This popular Christmas sauce is amazingly easy to get together – simmer cranberries with some cloves, a cinnamon stick, orange peel and some grated apple. You won’t want to be making some every time you have a viewing, though, so make a big batch and gently heat a small amount up just before viewers arrive. Sneaky, but saucy…
Make them pine for your house
As well as gingerbread, the quintessential aroma of Christmas is pine. Go natural this year and buy a real Christmas tree, which will fill the house with its clean refreshing scent. If you don’t have the space, or you really hate needles, opt for a pine candle instead. Make sure it’s a good quality one, though, as you don’t want the aroma of disinfectant wafting over your gingerbread cookies!
