One of the most common reasons people rent climate-controlled storage is to stage their home in an attempt to sell it. Real estate professionals often recommend that prospective sellers remove the clutter and personal mementos, photos, and even artwork.
So what exactly should you remove from the house and what should you do with it?
Clutter
To begin seeing the property with a potential buyers eyes, start by looking at the clutter. Do you have books and magazines stacked on the end tables? Shelves full of curios and mementos from family vacations? Or maybe a basket of the dog’s toys by the fireplace? All of those things may make the space more homey for you, but for the prospective buyer they are potential stumbling blocks.
A buyer who has different entertainment tastes may find your Stephen King novels too frightening and subconsciously decide that makes the house not as cozy. Worse yet, the buyer may see your clutter as dirty or untidy and check the house off the list. Pack up those mementos, photos and books and store them while you sell the house.
Furniture
Great-grandmother’s parlor sofa or the handmade table your grandfather made from a tree on his farm might be the perfect furnishings for your living room, but if you want to sell the house, you need to appeal to the potential buyer’s tastes. Of course, you can’t account for every potential buyer’s taste. Generally, completely new furniture shouldn’t be purchased or rented in an effort to sell a house. However, if you have furniture that everyone remarks on, especially if they use terms like unique and unusual, you might want to remove those until you move into your new house.
Artwork and Photographs
Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder and while it may not seem fair that the buyers don’t love the sad clown portraits your mother painted, chances are they don’t. Replace your family photos and personal artwork with more neutral options or leave the walls blank, so buyers can picture their own portraits adorning the space.
Valuables and Breakables
When you sell a home, you usually have to have open houses and showings to let prospective buyers take a look around. That means letting complete strangers into your home. During photographs for the real estate websites and during open houses, it’s a good idea to remove valuables and precious breakables to a location where they can’t accidentally disappear or get broken. Removing valuables before you take pictures of your home for websites can help reduce the risk of burglary.
Prepping your home for sale is more than just mowing the lawn and baking fresh cookies. Realtors recommend staging your home for sale buying making it less personal. Take their advice and move your personal items to climate-controlled storage for safe keeping until you are ready to move them to your new house.
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