When you're selling a property, a little effort goes a long way to achieving a sale at the best possible price. In order to attract a buyer, you must help your prospective purchaser imagine themselves living in your house. They must be able to imagine their own furniture and belongings in your property and that means making it as spacious and uncluttered as possible.

Remember, you're selling the property and moving on, so it must look the way someone else can imagine it, not the way you've got it now. It only takes a little effort to stack the odds in your favour and greatly improve your chances of achieving a quick and trouble-free sale.

• Make sure you set the right price, so get a professional valuation. Estate Agents give free, no obligation valuations, so ask at least three to come and look at your property. Your initial objective is to get people through the door but if the price is too high, they won't even bother to look. Getting them interested is half the battle.
• First impressions can be critical. So, tidy the garden, mow the lawn, make sure your visitors have somewhere to park and make sure the outside is well lit if it's in the evening.
• Keep pets out of the way when you're showing people round. They might not like the attention your dog is showing their leg!
• Make sure the house smells clean and fresh. Open the windows before they come and use an air freshener if necessary. Brew some coffee it always smells good!
• Try and fix obvious things like broken light bulbs and dripping taps. Touch up damaged wallpaper or paintwork and vacuum the carpets.
• A clean, tidy and uncluttered kitchen can make all the difference. So, clear all the worktops and make sure there's plenty of light.
• The bathroom is very important too, so clean the suite and put things away.
• In the bedrooms, again, tidy up and put things away because you need to give an impression of space; and don't forget to make the beds!
• The amount of storage space your house has got can be important, so point it out; otherwise, keep quiet!
• Try and have a good clear out of unwanted rubbish. You'll be surprised how much stuff you don't need and it'll save on removal costs when you move!

Usually, when you've agreed the sale of your property, the purchaser then arranges for a survey to be carried out. This means waiting for him to find and instruct a surveyor, waiting for the surveyor to contact you to make an appointment, waiting till you're available, waiting for the surveyor to carry out the survey, waiting for him to prepare and post the survey and waiting for it to get to the purchaser! All this time wasting can be avoided if you get a pre-sale survey.

Just remember, try to look at your property through a stranger's eyes; you might be used to the way it is, but they won't see it that way, so tidy up! After all, who will benefit when you sell your house quickly and for the best price - yes, YOU.

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