The room most likely to sell your home now, according to agents

When you’re selling your home, which is the room that has the potential to impress possible purchasers the most?

Not everyone has the same answer, but they do all agree on the kind of major area that people examine extremely carefully, and on which they place the highest value.

“It’s the kitchen,” says Craig Pontey, director of Ray White Double Bay. “Everyone wants a large, bright, airy kitchen which the family can sit in to eat breakfast, and preferably with a view out to the garden.”

On the Lower North Shore, Andrew Blaxland of Richardson & Wrench Mosman and Neutral Bay, says it’s the zone that includes both the kitchen and an open-plan family area combined. All the better too if it looks out to the garden, he adds.

Meanwhile Fabian Cabrera, director and auctioneer of LJ Hooker Burwood in the inner west goes one step further – through that kitchen view into the immediate outside.

“It’s that backyard that’s most important,” he says. “People love to be able to move seamlessly from the indoors to the back garden which is the space where most people love to chill out and entertain.”

Certainly, it’s worth considering those three areas when it comes time to sell a home. If buying decisions are most likely to be made on the quality of the kitchen, the area close by where the family can sit and the immediate backyard, then it’s worth putting some time, effort and maybe even money into presenting them as beautifully as possible.

Blaxland, for instance, believes it’s so desirable to have a great kitchen and family area extending off it, he’s currently in the middle of a complete renovation of his southern highlands property to completely reconfigure that layout.

“It’s absolutely worth the renovation before you sell,” he says. “I’m doing that with my own place and opening it up to the north to have a great kitchen and family room with sliding panels across the back of the house to create more of an indoor-outdoor space.

“People really want a kitchen that blends with the family living area. If space is limited, it might mean a galley-style kitchen to fit it in, but if there is enough room, then it’s even nicer to have a kitchen with an island.”

Buyers’ main priority with the kitchen is having a light, bright, up-to-date one which provides a great space to work in, with that view out to the yard, Pontey says. Ninety per cent of house-buying decisions are made by women, and it tends to be women again who spend the most time in the kitchen, he states.

“It’s about learned behaviours,” he says. “Mothers pass that idea of having a good kitchen which is a nice place for the family to gather at the start of the day to their children, and they pass that down to their children.

“The new generation may see a bit of a change in that a lot of the young guys these days like to cook so they take more of an interest in the kitchen, but generally it’s the most important room for women. As well, when you have guests, everyone likes to mill around a nice kitchen.”

Kitchens are particularly treasured by buyers when they have sliding, stacking or bi-fold doors opening up the house completely to the back garden, adds Blaxland. “We live in a climate where we spend so much of the year dining outdoors,” he says. “So if that leads from the kitchen and family room, so much the better.”

Cabrera agrees. “I think the outdoor area, with a covered entertainment deck, a BBQ, a nice lounger and a low-maintenance garden is the most important room of any house,” he says. “Then comes the family area and kitchen. Together, they’re the perfect package.”