Selling Tips

Selling a home is probably one of the most traumatic times for homeowners. The home must be in tip-top condition for the parade of potential buyers and Realtors®. If there are children, the effort to live a normal day to day life can be trying.  If you are sure you are going to move, here are a few tips to help you show your home to full advantage and ease some of the stress.  

Once you definitely decide you are going to sell your home, make yourself a reasonable time line to do some pre sale, stress reducing chores.  Talk with your Realtor to establish a reasonable time period in which it will take to sell your home.  

With a pad and pen, walk through your home and identify those items which you can live without for the next six months. 

  • Be merciless. What season is this? Do the clothes in the closet correspond to the season?
  • What furniture can you live without?
  • What knick-knacks line the mantle, the bureaus, the tables?
  • How old is that pile of papers and magazines? Are you really going to read them?
  • How many photos and pictures line your walls? What can you take down and pack?
  • Walk in the shoes of a buyer, look in the kitchen cabinets. When was the last time you used that Bundt pan?
  • What goodies lurk in the storage shed? The garage?
  • Call a moving company and ask for used boxes. Begin the packing process and identify contents of all boxes.
  • Rent a storage unit and store the packed boxes. 

If you take extra time to begin packing prior to putting up the “For Sale” sign, you will feel you have more control. Because you have eliminated several boxes full of items from your home, your home is bound to show better; there will be less clutter. Best of all, you will have a sense of achievement because you have begun the moving process.