Home Sellers Tip – Getting Ready to Sell Your Home – Tip # 2 – Remove Clutter

No matter how long you have lived in your home, you have likely managed to accumulate items that cause clutter. When you are getting ready to sell it is important to make your home look as large as you can to potential buyers and this means removing clutter as much as possible.

How Often do you use that?

First you are going to want to begin with items that you don’t use on a regular basis and pack these items away. A good place to start is in the kitchen, take inventory of the small appliances and decide if you use these items enough to need to have it available in the kitchen all the time.

Could the food processor, or slow cooker be stored in the basement for the duration of the time your home is on the market? Or better yet could some of these items such as large serving trays that you only use a couple times a year be packed away in a box in anticipation of moving?

Collections and Wall Hangings

Excess wall hangings, collections and nick-nacks are a huge clutter causing culprit. As I look at the shelves in my home office full of collectable bobble heads and other sports memorabilia, I immediately think of how if a potential buyer was to walk into this room many of them would be turned off by the clutter.

These are the kinds of things that can be difficult to put away because they give your home so much of its character but you have to think about the goal of getting your house sold.  You don’t have to part with your beloved collections but you might be wise to tuck them away until your home is sold.

Clear out the Closets

Another way to reduce clutter is to go through your closets and remove clothing and footwear items that you will not need during the listing period. You likely aren’t going to need the parka and snow boots in the middle of the summer.

Be careful, you don’t want to go too far only have six items hanging in your closet. The idea here is to give the appearance that all of your things fit comfortably. This will signal to a potential buyer that there will be enough space for their possessions. Storage is one area that buyers are always looking at so it pays to put some effort in here.

Sell, Donate or Throw Out

This is also a great opportunity to go through your home and decide if maybe it is time you do something with the excess belongings you have accumulated over the years. You have likely seen the shows on HGTV where someone comes into a home and they ruthlessly make people place all of their items into three piles keep, donate or sell, and trash. This is a great exercise to go through in your own home and possibly plan a garage sale to clear out some of these items with the remainder being donated to a charitable organization.

One thing to remember when going through this exercise is that you need to think about how much enjoyment you are getting from the items you have right now. I remember several years ago I went to move and found several boxes in my basement that I hadn’t unpacked from the last time I had moved. I realized that many of the things in these boxes were not very important to me as I had been living fine without them in my life and the majority of these belongings went straight to the trash.

Toys and Children’s Items

For those of us with children it can be difficult to cut down on the clutter because the kids, especially young ones, don’t understand what we are trying to accomplish. The best advice for dealing with children’s possessions, especially toys is to have storage for these items in your home that is accessible for the kids at play time but makes it possible to have them cleaned up quickly and have things put away nicely.

Storage

Now you’re probably thinking this is great I’ve gone through the house and dealt with all this clutter and boxed everything up, but aren’t the boxes now causing clutter? Often, organizing and strategically utilizing the available storage areas in the basement and garage you can keep everything in your house however it might make sense to invest in some off-site storage for the time that your home is listed for sale.

By taking steps to remove clutter form your home you will be on your way to having your home ready to go from just listed to sold in as short a time as possible.