Are you thinking of selling your house this spring. NOW is a grand time to really dig in and start getting ready. Here are some ideas I just shared with another friend who is planning to list their home in two months.:
Clean your house BIG TIME. As she put it, "give it an awesome in-depth spring cleaning!"
Assuming you will be living in the home while it is up for sale, weed, weed, and weed some more. The house (and garden, too, if necessary. ). Make three piles - throw away, give away, storage.
"Throw Away" and "Give Away" items are pretty obvious. The storage is a bit trickier. What goes into storage? Pretty much EVERYTHING you can live without. I know it's hard but you want to pack up any and all personal items including photos, photo albums, most of your movie and music collection, cute knick-knacks, most of the kids/grandkids' toys, etc. It makes the house look and stay much neater.
Keep a few "generic" pictures on the walls - landscapes are always lovely. Maybe a vase or two here and there. But for the most part, you also want to keep bathroom and kitchen counters as empty as possible as it makes the rooms look more spacious.
Instead of putting these items in closets, the garage or an attic, it's best if you can stash them at a friend or relative's home, rent a storage unit or use a storage pod-type container. If you go the pod route, I'd also recommend that you have that moved into storage or to your new home as soon as you have filled it.
The two primary goals in all of this are:
- A clean home that will stay as clean as possible as easily as possible
- A home that does not have anything personal of yours so that when a prospective buyer walks through they are able to see THEMSELVES settling in, living there, having their friends and family there. Ideally you don't want there to be anything of yours that would distract them from visualizing themselves buying the home and living there.
Preparing your home to sell it is rarely easy. It's usually just plain hard work - physically AND emotionally. But each day, as you clean and prepare each room, packing away delightful memories to move with you, you'll get a step closer to your end goal - a successful home sale and a positive move of your own to YOUR new home, whether it's near or far. The end will definitely make the process well worthwhile.
P.S. You can find even more tips at http://www.kayeswain.com/selling-home-spring-prep/.
P.P.S. Now is also a grand time to talk to your REALTOR®, ask her opinion on items to keep or pack, get creative ideas and helpful suggestions for how to prepare for listing your home, and maybe even get some of the paperwork out of the way to save time down the road. And if you don't have a REALTOR® yet, I'd love to help you. Just give me a call at 657-229-KAYE or email me at Kaye@KayeSwain.com
I did have a lot of fun picking it out!
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