YOUR mother may have told you that first impressions count, well she wasn't wrong as West Bridgford home owners Rob and Andrea Atkinson found to their cost when they left their house empty and on the market.

If we're selling a house, we all know to have a good tidy up before the viewers come round, but what if the house is empty? Can viewers really envisage what the house will look like furnished?

When Rob Atkinson accepted a job in Dubai, the family put their home in West Bridgford on the marketing hoping to sell before leaving. However, it wasn't to be and they left the house sale in the hands of various estate agents as they jetted off.

One year later, it still hadn't sold so Rob contacted professional home stager Lynn Pick.

On receiving Lynn's report, Rob was thrilled with the frank and helpful assessment. Her comments on the conflict between the modern downstairs and dated upstairs opened his eyes.

He said: "You are quite right… I never really got round to the upstairs, it was on the agenda then I moved overseas. None of the estate agents have had any useful suggestions to make, apart from reducing the price by £10k!"

Home Stylers took over the house for a week, decorating, cleaning and styling it to appeal to everyone. Rob's initial reservations about spending half the £3,000 budget on accessories to stage the house soon disappeared when he saw the results. "The place looks 100 times better – we want to move back in!"

Rob changed agents, enlisting Royston and Lund to sell the house. They said: "Wow, Lynn's done an amazing job, it looks stunning! We've re-marketed it with new photos and as our property of the week."

Four days later, the agents were back in touch again – they'd sold it for the full asking price of £160,000.

Lynn said: "The usual advice is to reduce the asking price by £10k.

"Rob chose to invest in staging. There was a lot of work to be done, but the £3k he spent only equated to 2% of the value of the property, and he could finally move on with his life.

"Rob's case was an extreme example of Home Staging – adding furniture and accessories to an empty house, but often, only a couple of day's work is needed, re-arranging what's already there – or it could even be as simple as a quick one-day tidy-up and style for the photographs (cost £195).