This feature has been written by David Hallas, co-owner of David Hallas Keller Williams.

If two nearly identical houses on the same Teddington street sell months apart for very different prices, the difference is rarely luck.

Buyers deduct for a short list of things, and they deduct heavily. The good news is that most of them can be sorted for a fraction of what they cost you at the negotiating table.

Here are the five I see most often around TW11, and what to do about each one.

1. A poor EPC rating

An energy rating of D or below is now one of the first things buyers check, and rising bills make it an easy excuse to knock money off or walk away.

Loft insulation, draught proofing and a boiler service are cheap; even switching to LED bulbs throughout moves the needle.

If your EPC is old, get it refreshed before you list: an outdated certificate showing a rating you have since improved is leaving money on the table.

2. The "one project" buyers can smell

Every buyer walks through the door calculating the cost of the one job they can't ignore: the tired bathroom, the 1990s kitchen, the garden that's been left to itself. They don't price that work at cost. They price it at cost plus a margin for hassle, plus a bit more because they can.

A weekend of painting, fixing the sticking door, cutting the hedge back from the windows and power-washing the patio will not transform the house, but it removes the discount trigger.

3. Paperwork gaps

Missing building regulations certificates for that extension or loft conversion is a silent deal-killer. Solicitors ask, buyers' solicitors ask harder, and without the paperwork you are either renegotiating the price mid-sale or losing the buyer altogether.

If you have done work to the property, dig out the certificates now. If you cannot find them, indemnity insurance is usually the fix, but know where you stand before the buyer's solicitor does.

4. Pricing to the algorithm, not the street

Online valuations work off averages. They do not know that your side of the road backs onto Bushy Park, that yours is one of only a handful of houses on the street with off-street parking, or that the character features you've kept are exactly what buyers in Teddington are searching for.

Nor do they know that the "comparable" they're matching you to was a smaller house, in worse condition, sold a year ago. Pricing well at launch matters more than any other single decision.

A home that goes on too high and later drops carries a visible price-reduction history that buyers read as "something is wrong with it."

5. Presenting to the market you have, not the one you wish you had

The people buying in Teddington right now are mostly professionals trading up the school ladder and first-time buyers who have saved hard. Both judge a home within minutes of seeing the photos.

That does not mean spending thousands on staging. It means the photographs need to be good, taken at the right time of day, in rooms that are decluttered and lit properly. If the first photo on Rightmove shows a dark hallway, a sizeable share of buyers never click through at all.

The common thread

None of these five are about spending big. They are about seeing your home the way a buyer's surveyor, solicitor and spreadsheet will see it. Before they do. And that is a conversation best had months before the board goes up, not the week you decide to sell.

If you are wondering what your home would fetch in today's Teddington market, and what, if anything, is worth fixing first, I am happy to walk you through it. I live and work here, and I will tell you honestly which of the five apply to your house and which do not.

Call or text me on 07550 016100. And if you register your interest before Christmas, I am selling homes for 0.7% + VAT.

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