If like thousands of other people every day, you are looking to sell up and move house, you will want to give yourself the best possible chance of getting as close to, or even more than, the asking price for your own property.

In todays unpredictable housing market, getting anywhere near the asking price of your house can be almost impossible, unless you are offering potential buyers exactly what they want. A poorly decorated room or a cluttered garden can be enough to put many people off purchasing your humble abode. You may know yourself that certain areas of your house could do with improvements, but you simply can not afford the outlay to renovate those rooms. This usually leads to one of two scenarios.

1. The offending room is left in its existing condition and viewer after viewer will go away without even considering an offer.

2. Furniture is rented to paper over the cracks in the offending room, creating unnecessary costs until the house is sold. This also causes the problem of a house being sold as seen, in which case, the buyer would expect all the furnishings to be there when they moved in.

The first scenario is obviously the worst case, the chances are that eventually the property will be sold, but perhaps for an amount significantly below the asking price.

The second scenario involves regular financial outlay until a suitable offer is made and accepted, which could be weeks or even months.

However, these two scenarios never have to occur, especially if it is your bathroom which is causing the difficulties. As the bathroom is the most visited room in the house, it is imperative that this room stands out to the buyer. If you have lived in your existing property for a number of years, theres a good chance that your bathroom will have remained the same since you first moved in, but because youve got used to having a green sink and toilet, you see this as standard. Be aware - there is nothing that will put off a potential buyer more than matching coloured sanitary ware in a bathroom! Combine this with a dull, grey bath and you are asking for trouble.

When a potential buyer walks into a bathroom, they want to see 3 things:

1. A clean, modern or traditional white bathroom suite with chrome fittings.

2. A simple layout with a choice of facilities, e.g. a bath and a shower cubicle, or at the very least, a shower bath.

3. Plenty of room and storage space.

Taste is down to the individual but generally speaking, as long as your bathroom has clean, bright fixtures and fittings, a potential buyer will go away without having to worry about completely ripping out the bathroom and starting from scratch. By giving them something to work with, you are significantly increasing your chances of selling the property.

Achieving the above is not an expensive task. Complete bathroom suites can be purchased for under 250, that includes a basin, toilet and a reasonably sized bath. Taps to fit these fixtures can also be purchased for well under 100 with some online companies offering a basin tap and a bath shower mixer tap for only 65! These costs are not to be underestimated. Fitting a new bathroom can increase the value of your house significantly, or at the very least, get you your asking price. A 300 spend on your bathroom could be worth at least 10 times that on the price of the property.

Therefore, for under 300 youre not just getting a brand new fully furnished bathroom, youre getting a near guaranteed sale at the price you want.

If youre looking to sell your house over the next few weeks or months, before you do, make sure you take a good look around, even invite a neighbour round to gauge their opinion. As has already been mentioned, a green bathroom might be gorgeous to you, but to the general public, it is ghastly!