Why the outside matters more than you think
The first photo in every listing is the front of the house. Buyers scroll past a dull, streaky exterior before they ever see the kitchen, and the ones who do come to the open home have already formed an opinion on the footpath. Mould on the render, moss on the roof, a grey driveway and dirty windows all read as "needs work", and "needs work" costs you at the negotiation table far more than a clean ever would.
Timing
Book the exterior clean for one to two weeks before the photography. That is enough time for the roof treatment to finish working and the gardens to settle, and close enough that nothing has had time to get dirty again. Tell the cleaner it is a pre-sale job: the priorities are different from a maintenance wash.
The order that works
- Gutters first. Cleared and flushed, so nothing runs down clean walls later and the fascias look straight and bright in the photos.
- Roof. A roof soft wash takes the moss, lichen and black streaks off tiles or Colorbond. In an aerial or elevated photo the roof is half the picture.
- House wash. Walls, eaves, downpipes, garage door, entry, balustrades and frames, soft washed so paint and render are cleaned rather than stripped.
- Windows. Exterior glass with purified water so it dries clear. Clean glass makes the whole house look maintained. At Dript the window clean is included with every house wash.
- Driveway, paths and patio. Pressure cleaned last, so the walk from the street to the door is clean and even edge to edge.
- The details. Pool fence glass, the letterbox, the front fence, retaining walls, the bins. Buyers see them even when you no longer do.
What not to do
- Do not hire a pressure washer and go at the walls. High pressure strips paint, pits mortar and forces water under weatherboards. A stripe of bare render on photo day is worse than the mould was.
- Do not paint over growth. Mould under new paint comes through within months, and the buyer's building inspector will find it.
- Do not leave it to the week of the photos. Weather, access and the roof treatment's working time all need a buffer.
What agents notice
Agents walk hundreds of properties and they read the exterior the way a buyer does, only faster. A clean roof and gutters say the house has been maintained. Clear glass says the place is light inside. A clean driveway says the garage is not full of problems. None of it is strictly true, and all of it moves the price.
Before and after, for the listing
Every Dript clean comes with a report of before and after photos. Some owners give the after photos to the agent for the campaign; the before photos are a useful reminder of what the house would have presented like without the clean.