Organizing Your Home for the Market

The real estate market seems to be picking up again and it is keeping us busy with organizing homes for the market. If you are ready to sell, it pays to be organized. Here are some examples.

1. Meet With Your Mover Early

When you are ready to sell your home, you may not know where you are moving to yet, but it makes sense to meet with a reputable mover as early as possible. As with so many processes, it’s easier to know how to start, when you know where you are heading. You not only learn all the things that you need to take care of, but all the things you DON’T need to worry about.

2. Declutter

Whether you are having your home professionally staged (see 3.) or not, your home must be decluttered to sell. It is a mistake to assume that your potential buyers will have the imagination to see beyond your clutter.  If your plan is to hide it all in you closets and basements, think again. Your potential buyers have as much stuff as you do and they’re looking for storage in your home.

3. Stage

If you want to sell your home as fast as possible and for as much money as possible, you should consider hiring a home stager. A stager’s job is to convert your home to a product for the marketplace. It may be as simple as removing and rearranging a few items or as complex as a complete redesign, depending on your home and your budget. On average, a staged home sells 73% faster and for 17% more than an unstaged home. So staging is less of an expense and more of an investment, that pays off big.

4. Exit Strategy

Decluttering is about more than just tossing items of no value. It also involves items that are worth selling and donating. If you have a garage, I always recommend decluttering there first. There tends to be a lot of quick wins in the garage and it’s a logical location to establish clear exit zones for sell and donate. Bear in mind, your home stager won’t have plan for that extra easy chair, other than to put it into storage “for now.” Moving, especially if you are downsizing, is a rare opportunity to shed some of that extra stuff, that’s no longer serving you. Items that goes in storage tends to stay in storage and costs you, month after month. So consider selling and donating them before they’re loaded into the moving trucks.

Of course it is a lot of work to sort out all your excess stuff and move it out. That’s where we come in. If you are overwhelmed with the sale of your home and the move to your next home, we can sort it all out fast, do all the physical work, arrange for the next stages, and leave you in the driver’s seat the entire time. Contact me for a free needs analysis today.