Making a Home Attractive to Prospective Buyers

If you are planning to put your home on the market, realtors will often suggest staging your home. What this means generally is making it clutter free and removing any “distractions”. You want buyers to be able to picture their things in the home.

Remember- they are looking to buy THEIR home, not yours.

Don’t strip it bare

It is not necessary to “move out”.  You are, after all, still living in it. Most furniture should stay, unless it makes a room crowded.  Too many dining room or kitchen chairs will make the rooms look crowded.  Unless you need them all for day to day living, plan on removing the extras.

Determining what to eliminate

A table, filled with framed pictures, in the living room is a comfort to you, but a distraction to shoppers. Reduce it to one or two, or replace them all with one or two current magazines.

Cluttered, jam packed closets are not attractive either.  Determine what clothes you can do without for the next several months and neatly box them up.  Remember to thin out all closets (bedrooms, hall, etc.)

If you are a collector of nic-nacs and have them lining the tops of kitchen cabinets, go ahead and box them up, too.  You and they will survive and you will already have them packed for the move.

The garage is another culprit of buyer turn-offs.  You want buyers to picture their car in the garage. So, all of the items that accumulate and end up in the garage have to be relocated….box them up. If there is shelving in the garage, thin out what is on them so it doesn’t look overloaded. If there are bicycles stored in the garage, either remove them or make sure they are in working order and clean.  You don’t want the garage to appear as a junk holder.

If the patio furniture is well-weathered, now is a good time to remove them or replace them.

Where it all goes

All of the items you eliminate to un-clutter your home can be temporarily stored at a self storage facility.  They offer a wide selection of sizes so you can rent one by the month to store these items until moving day.  You’ll also find moving easier if a lot is out of the way for the initial move.  The managers at the storage facility can help assist you in determining the right size for your needs.

Climate controlled storage

Many self storage locations offer units that are climate controlled.  They are heated in the winter and air conditioned in the summer.  It would be like your items never left home.

How to move all of these things to storage?

There are some storage locations that offer a free move-in truck as part of their leasing promotions. It pays to do a little homework ahead of time.

Related posts:

Tips for Selling Your Home In Today’s Troubled Market Tips for Choosing the Most Suitable Estate Agent