Can lighting increase the value of your home?

Just as important as this though is the emotional effect that lighting can have on a prospective buyer. Decisions about buying property are made with the heart as much as with the head.

These days, some estate agents use photos of properties lit up at night as part of the marketing strategy.  Good lighting makes a property look inviting and homely.  If you are marketing your home yourself, through an online agency, you can include such photos to help entice a buyer in.  A well-lit façade adds a touch of magic and makes your home look special.  Don’t forget – it’s all about first impressions when selling a house!

Although people do not usually do viewings at night, in autumn and winter, dull afternoons and viewings at dusk are commonplace.  In this case, the right lighting can really impact a prospective buyer’s impression of your property.

Again, first impressions count when people enter your home, usually into an entrance hall.  They will react immediately to the feeling they get as they walk in, and this will set the tone for the viewing.  Make the porch or hallway feel welcoming.  Use warm coloured lighting and/or lamps and wall  lights to create a homely feel.  Lived-in paintwork also looks better under soft lighting than under harsh bright light!

In the same way that you might dress your home for a viewing by tidying away clutter, plumping cushions and putting fresh flowers in a vase, lighting is key to setting the mood.  Use it to make your property feel warm and inviting.  Highlight flowers, artwork or architectural features to add wow factor.

Clever lighting can make a slightly dark home feel bright and welcoming and an ordinary property stand out.

Lighting has also been shown to be of particular importance in bathrooms and kitchens, both practical spaces where good lighting has a real impact.

An expensive marble bathroom which is poorly lit will have less visual impact than a more ordinary bathroom with clever, well thought out lighting.

People spend a lot of time in their kitchens these days – they are the hub of the home and therefore often a deal-breaker of a space.  Good lighting is essential in a kitchen for practical reasons, but it is also important to be able to create different moods to suit its different uses at different times of day.  Circuiting lighting at different levels and adding dimmers creates depth and mood to a multi-functional kitchen/living space.

Remember that clever lighting can be used to highlight a property’s best features and also to subtly obscure its less attractive ones.  Leaving less remarkable areas in shadow will allow the more inspiring parts of your home to come to the fore and really shine.

Garden lighting is also a plus.  With the rise in popularity of landscaping and the design of outdoor spaces, coupled with the popularity of glazing in extensions and new builds, having exterior lighting is now seen as a definite bonus and again can provide some atmospheric photographs for your home’s profile page.

It is just as important, of course, to remember that bad lighting can have the opposite effect on the value of your home.  No one likes a property which looks and feels uninspiring and dingy or cold and clinical - and beware of accidentally highlighting less attractive features of your façade, such as guttering and burglar alarm boxes, with badly positioned wall lights..