Make Your Property Appeal to Potential Buyers
If you spend any time at all looking at the myriad of photos of desirable homes for sale on the internet, you will soon notice a few similarities: they’re clutter-free and beautifully styled.
A lot of potential buyers can’t actually picture themselves living in a new space as the visual ‘noise’ and personal items distract them. They can’t see past these distractions to the potential that a few changes might make to the property, which may result in you missing out on a sale or not receiving as high a price as possible. Getting rid of clutter also makes rooms and cupboards seem more spacious which can be a great help in the sale of your home. Aside from that, surfaces clear of bits and pieces are much easier to keep dust free, which is important for the period of time your house will be on the market!
So, the first step to present your property in its best light is to declutter and as this is often seen as a painful experience and one that is most likely put off until there’s no choice but to face it!
Benefits of Decluttering Your Home
Decluttering is basically making a series of sometimes difficult decisions about our possessions and whether we should keep them or not. There’s a whole industry out there dedicated to the process of decluttering simply because people find it so difficult to do. We hold on to broken items, telling ourselves we’ll get them fixed, or unimportant papers such as really old receipts and ticket stubs. We keep clothes that don’t fit us or that we don’t like simply because they cost a lot to buy. We buy multiple storage boxes to hold items that really should be let go.
Often the decision to sell one’s home becomes the catalyst to face the clutter and the pressure of having to deal with it in a short period of time can additional stress to the situation.
10 Steps to Successfully Declutter Your Home
If you have kids, get them involved. Offer an incentive for every tub of stuff they let go.
If there’s something you want to keep really ask yourself if you love it or use it and unless the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ then you must question whether you should keep it!
Get 3 large tubs and label them ‘donate’, ‘throw away’, ‘sell’. Go from room to room and address every single item in that room. The only things that won’t go in one of the tubs are the things you’ll keep. Wipe out the drawer or shelf and put the ‘keep’ things away.
Start with ‘low hanging fruit’. Go through wardrobes and anything that no longer fits or you don’t like, either turf or donate. Old unimportant paperwork, odd socks, anything unloved, unwanted, broken can be thrown out. This often helps get you going and makes further decluttering easier.
Get a buddy to help. If you’re too embarrassed to ask a friend or afraid you’ll offend a relative by certain choices, then call in a professional to help!
Start as early as you possibly can. Don’t leave it to the last moment as you’ll feel pressured to let things go that you may regret
Don’t miss any drawers, storage spaces – be committed to going through everything. Remember, everything you want to keep will need to be packed away to move out of the home you’re selling!
Once you’ve made decisions to let go of items, then act on that promptly. For example, if you have a box full of ‘donate’ items, then get them out of the house within a day or so, otherwise you may be tempted to pop them back in a cupboard. From my experience, once you’ve sent it off, 90% of the time you won’t ever think about it again or therefore miss it.
Don’t forget the garage, basement or attic – these are often the hard ones as we store sentimental stuff here.
Repeat the process until you have finished every single room. By this stage, your house should have a lot less clutter in cupboards and on surfaces.
Now you’re ready to consider staging your property for sale, but this is a whole other blog post!
Keep the Clutter at Bay
When you move to your new home – you should do regular mini decluttering bursts such as one drawer or shelf a week and your wardrobe every change of season. And before you buy anything new, really question yourself whether you need the item, really do love it and have somewhere to store it at home – because the simplest way to avoid creating more clutter is to stop it from coming into your home!
There are so many books, articles and blogs dedicated to decluttering because it really can have such a liberating effect on your life. Clutter can take up so much of our energy and by not dealing with it, we never move past the frustration and therefore don’t get to spend that time on things we actually love doing.
If you need help with your clutter or for more tips on decluttering, visit declutteringqueen.com.au or call 0450 284 922.