Getting the House Ready to Sell

Disconnect Your Emotions

When conversing with real estate agents, you will often find that when they talk to you about buying real estate, they will refer to your purchase as a "home." Yet if you are selling property, they will often refer to it as a "house." There is a reason for this. Buying real estate is often an emotional decision, but when selling real estate you need to remove emotion from the equation.

You need to think of your house as a marketable commodity. Property. Eal Estate. Your goal is to get others to see it as their potential home, not yours. If you do not consciously make this decision, you can inadvertently create a situation where it takes longer to sell your property.

The first step in getting your home ready to sell is to "de-personalize" it.

Getting the House Ready to Sell

If there is a new home sales tract near your home, go visit. It doesn't matter what size the homes are. What you will find are some wonderfully (but sparsely) furnished homes that anyone could live in -- with the emphasis on "anyone." They are anonymous. There may be a baseball glove in the boy's room, but no family photos on the walls.

There may be "personality" - but no person.

The reason you want to make your  home"anonymous" is because you want buyers to view it as their potential home. When a potential homebuyer sees your family photos hanging on the wall, it puts your own brand on the home and momentarily shatters their illusions about living in the house themselves.

Put away family photos, sports trophies, collectible items, knick-knacks, and souvenirs. Put them in a box. Rent a storage area for a few months and put the box in the storage unit.

Do not just put the box in the attic, basement, garage or a closet. Part of preparing a house for sale is to remove "clutter," and that is the next step in preparing your house for sale.

Uncluttering the House

This is the hardest thing for most people to do because they are emotionally attached to everything in the house. After years of living in the same home, clutercollects in such a way that may not be evident to the homeowner. However, it does affect the way buyers see the home, even if you do not realize it.

Clutter collects on shelves, counter tops, drawers, closets, garages, attics, and basements.  You want as much open clear space as possible, so every extra little thing needs to be cleared away.

Probably the most overlooked is the Entracnce , while a Welcome mat , maybee a nice touch , but planters ,umbrella holders and other decorations may make the entrance to the home seem to small .

Take a step back and pretend you are a buyer. Let a friend help point out areas of clutter, as long as you can accept their views without getting defensive. Let your agent help you, too.

Getting the House Ready to Sell

Kitchen Clutter

The kitchen is a good place to start removing clutter, because it is an easy place to start.

Get everything off the counters !!  Everything. Even the toaster. Put the toaster in a cabinet and take it out only when you need it. Find a place where you can store everything in cabinets and drawers.Do you have service for 12 of china ware and only 4 people in your home ?Of course, you may notice that you do not have cabinet space to put everything. Clean them out. The dishes, pots and pans that rarely get used? Put them in a box and put that box in storage. And that's one less thing you have to pack later.

You see, homebuyers will open all your cabinets and drawers, especially in the kitchen. They want to be sure there is enough room for their "stuff." If your kitchen cabinets, pantries, and drawers look overfilled, it sends the buyer a negative message , and makes it seem that their isn't enough storage space. The best way to make cabinets seem plentiful ,is to have as much "empty space" as possible.

For that reason, if you have a "junk drawer," get rid of the junk. If you have a rarely used appliance, put it in storage. Do this with every cabinet and drawer. Create open space.

If you have a large amount of food crammed into the shelves or pantry, use them istead of buying more food – especially canned goods. Canned goods are heavy and you don’t want to be carrying them to a new house.  Let what you have on the shelves determine your menus and use up as much as you can.Even an overfilled refrigerator makes it look smaller than it really is .

Beneath the sink is very critical, too. Make sure the area beneath the sink is as empty as possible, removing all extra cleaning supplies. You should scrub the area down as well, and determine if there are any tell-tale signs of water leaks that may cause a homebuyer to hesitate in buying your home .Clean or Repaint any old water stains .

Not to mention when buyer see a pot or bucket under the sink , it give the assumption that there is a water leak.

Closets are great for accumulating clutter, though you may not think of it as clutter. Having 40 pairs of shoes maybee nice, but tends to make the closet look small. Do without these items for a couple of months by putting them in a box." Sometimes there are shoeboxes full of "stuff" or other accumulated personal items, too.

Many people have too much furniture in certain rooms – you should only have enough for your own personal living needs – but too much or oversized furniture o gives the illusion of a small room. You may want to tour some builders’ models to see how they place furniture in the model lhomes. Observe how they place furniture in the models so you get some ideas on what to remove and what to leave in your house.

Basements, garages, attics, and sheds accumulate not only clutter, but junk. These areas should be as empty as possible so that buyers can imagine what they would do with the space. Remove anything that is not essential and take it to the storage area.

Or better yet, its yard sale time !