Clean Home, Easy Sale
Posted on November 25, 2009
Filed Under Foreclosed Homes For Sale |
One of the biggest problems people run into when selling their home is the process of preparing it for sale. Many homes are simply places where we keep the accumulated treasures of the years. Are you a clutter-bug, a pack-rat? It’s OK, we all are to some degree. When preparing a home for sale, we need to be mindful of our “stuff.” The best way to begin this process is to take a quick walk through your home. Make a list of everything that you have not used in the past 3 months, 6 months? Now, and here is the hard part. Get rid of it. Seem a bit extreme? It might, but things that you have not used in half a year are not likely to get used in the future. Remember we are trying to get rid of some stuff so that people can see the house, not what’s in it.
There is a common line of thought that home buyers want to see the “personality” of the homes current owners. This is not true. Buyers want to be able to see their belongings in the home. They want to put their personality into it to see if they could see themselves living there. A backlog of your stuff will get in the way of them doing this. Go through every room in turn and remove the clutter! This includes the closets, shelves and cupboards. Also remove excess furniture if the room seems too crowded. Here is another important thing to remember, don’t put all this stuff in the garage! Buyers will go through the garage like any other room in your home. Hire a storage locker if it is really necessary. Aside from that, use this as an opportunity to rid yourself of those things that you never use.
The minimalist approach is a good thing to utilize when showing your home. The lack of personal effects will make it easier for buyers to place themselves in your home. This will also make the moving process easier on you. With less things to pack when moving day comes, you can dedicate more time to creating your perfect space in your new home.
Preston Guyton
http://www.articlesbase.com/real-estate-articles/clean-home-easy-sale-120820.html
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2 Responses to “Clean Home, Easy Sale”
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Have you ever played the home version of “Clean Sweep”?
I really want to get rid of a lot of junk in my house that has accumulated over the years. My house is so small that I cannot really go through the junk and then store it until the garage sale. I did have the idea to move everything to my back yard and separate it into ‘keep’ ’sale’ and ‘trash’ piles. I don’t have an actual garage or carport to keep the weather of off it. Any ideas of how to keep the weather/animals off of my junk? Tarps rip to easy! Also, has anyone else done this? How successful was it?
When I moved, I did do a version of Clean Sweep. I rented a small dumpster and parked it in the driveway, that was the toss pile. I cleaned out the front room first, that was the area for the keep pile. I didn’t have time to do the garage sale, but outside on the front porch was the give away pile. So I sorted things as I picked them up: I didn’t make big piles and then sort. That was the rule, if I picked it up I had to make a decision. It was hard at first but got progressively easier and became like a game! I started at the front of the house and worked my way to the back. As we got a load of things to give away, my fiance took them to Goodwill, etc… So he made a couple trips a day there. The dumpster got emptied every 3 days. I think I kept it a little over a week. It was easier for me to do it a room at a time, I would have gotten very overwhelmed trying to do the whole house at once!
Good luck!
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