According to research by HouseSimple.com, when viewing a three-bedroom house, house hunters typically spend 1.5 times longer looking at the lounge – or living room – than the kitchen. For one-bedroom properties, the lounge is just as important, but the next most attention- worthy room is the bedroom, rather than the kitchen.
Although not many one-bedroom properties have a dedicated dining room, buyers still spend more time looking at their dining area than the bathroom.
Perhaps the biggest surprise from the study was that no matter the size of the home, the outside area in a property – whether that’s a front garden, back garden or patio – is a generally bigger deal breaker than the bathroom.
Across all homes, buyers spent the most time on average looking at furniture features such as L-shaped sofas, coffee tables and workspaces.
Top five selling points in a three-bedroom house:
1.Living room
2.Kitchen
3.Master bedroom
4.Garden
5.Bathroom
Top five selling points in a one-bedroom flat:
1.Living room
2.Bedroom
3.Outside space
4.Kitchen
5.Dining area
Alex Gosling, CEO of HouseSimple.com, says: “At HouseSimple.com, we advise prioritising low-cost tactics to showcase your home in the best possible light, whether that’s opting for neutral decor or simply removing clutter before a viewing.
This study shows that the living room is the best place to start. When selling your home online, we recommend making this room the focal point of your listing, with plenty of photographs that reflect a warm, homely feel.
We know that house hunters spend around 20 seconds looking at property listings with photographs. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s better than the two seconds they spend looking at ones without images.
Listings with professional photographs also sell 50% faster and 39% closer to the asking price than listings without them, so it’s worth the extra time and effort to get them right.”
