If your sales team — your selling agent and your Sydney home staging expert — tell you that your home could be very attractive to baby boomers you’re in luck. Among the home-buyers in Australia today, baby boomers – those born after the Second World War and before the mid-1980s – represent the high-end of the market. Boomers have done their share of scrimping and saving. They have done without things as they raised their families. Now that they are ready to retire, they’re ready to pamper themselves and splurge a bit.
These people are looking to downsize. They are also relishing thoughts of a lifestyle change. The big old house in which they raised their families is more than they wish to maintain. Now they want a smaller place with nicer amenities. They most certainly don’t want to play DIY games or to buy a fixer upper. They want to relax and enjoy their golden years. The house they are shopping for today is the place most of them plan to live for the remainder of their days. To home-sellers this means a shift in thinking when it comes to preparing a house for sale.
In many ways, boomers agree with their millennial offspring. They want a house that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to heat and cool. They want to save their cash for fun and frolic. They don’t want to be house poor. They are not all looking for a garden plot or an expansive yard in which to entertain. Low maintenance is high on their shopping lists, along with efficiency.
Boomers are attracted to houses that have a one-level plan. This is a matter of planning for the future. Stairs are a red-flag for buyers who are growing older. Even something as simple as a set of five steps up to the back door can be a deal changer for boomers. Falls are killers for the elderly, so eliminating stairs and installing ramps is a good idea if you want to attract this group of buyers.
Ramps don’t have to be eyesores. With the help of a good contractor and your Sydney home staging expert, you can design a ramp to access your front entry that looks as if it was part of the original blueprints. Actually, such an amenity is one of the best things you can do and is relatively inexpensive overall. The profit potential for such a project can be dramatic.
If your place is multi-level, discuss options with an experienced selling agent. It’s possible that installing a lift to access other stories of your house could be a big selling point and make your house viable for an older set of buyers. Not everybody likes a one-level home and creating a means by which living flat can be avoided may be a solid strategy for you.
Lifts are designed today that can fit into just about any budget. There are the chair-lift kinds that are installed at the stairway, enabling the homeowner to ride a comfortable seat to the next floor. Of course, there are also the more elaborate, elevator-ish lifts that are more expensive but infinitely elegant. Before you eliminate this idea entirely, shop around and give it extra consideration. It could open an otherwise impossible market for you and your house.
Older home buyers are moving into homes and apartments that offer extra luxury and better access to the entertainments they may have missed out on in their family-raising years. If your place is situated near restaurants, shops, theatres and galleries, you may be sitting on a gold mine.
The steps to adjust your property to attract older buyers are not that much more expensive or difficult than those that make a house millennial-ready. The individual investments you make to attract older buyers may be more expensive – the chef-quality kitchen appliances for example – but they are candy to the older house shopper. Boomers are a bit choosier than they used to be, but they are simply indulging themselves in ways they never could before. Who can blame them?
Don’t be afraid to open all the doors and windows in rethinking your property. The experts in these matters are already on your telephone’s speed dial. Your real estate selling agent and your Sydney home staging specialist are authorities to consult in making your property irresistible to the retirement crowd.
