- Try to do a bit at a time. We recommend 10 boxes a day. When your house sells, you will have just a few weeks to move everything. Starting early and getting a lot of your belongings packed up before you even put the property on the market will give you a great head start and make the weeks before you close much less stressful. Ask your REALTOR® if they know of a recently moved past client who may have boxes to pass on to you.
- Tackle one space at a time. Sellers who go all in and start cleaning out every closet and cabinet at the same time end up with piles of stuff and boxes. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That is exactly the way that you clean a house to get it ready for the market. Friends can’t make choices about what to keep or give away, but they can help pack boxes of things that you have already made choices of whether to keep or give away. Having a friend help clean out cabinets for you can just end in frustration and anxiety as they will likely be asking you for directions while you are trying to do your own cleaning and packing. Don’t get caught wondering if you may need something or not. You will get stuck if you spend time deciding if you can part with your high school letter jacket or grandmother’s sewing basket. If there are items that you aren’t sure you will need in your next home but you aren’t yet ready to get rid of, put them in boxes together toward one side of your storage unit and label them as maybe. You can go back through them at the storage unit or in your new garage before moving them into your house. If you move them you will end up keeping them and filling up the closets in your new home. Making the decision to keep or dispose of items is easier when they aren’t already placed in your home.
- Rent a storage unit. You can often find deals with the first month or two half price. Having things in boxes and extra furniture out of the way will make your house seem so much more spacious, and you will appreciate that much of the work is already done.
- Pack away your out of season clothes. In this seller’s market, it is unlikely that the house will be on the market long enough to get into the next season and you will be packing them to move anyway. If you are selling during a bridge season, put some clothes for next season in suitcases so you will have them ready to move into your next home. Having closets that still have room for clothes will give buyer’s confidence that they will have enough closet space when they move in. Make sure you get rid of all the dry-cleaner type wire hangers and replace them with single color plastic hangers or your favorite upscale wire hangers. It seems a bit over the top to buy new hangers, but a row of white hangers against your closet poles helps create a sense of a more organized space.
- Clean out the attic or closets of holiday decorations that you won’t use until you move again into your new home. If the attic is full, it can be hard for the home and pest inspectors to complete their inspections, leaving questions in buyers minds. These questions can cause snags in negotiations and potentially cost you money.
- Clean out bathroom drawers and cabinets. You may find that you have a collection of half used bottles of lotion and shampoo. Toss expired or dried up products, like sunscreen. Make sure you place any medicines in safe places out of sight, especially if you plan on having an open house. Make sure that the tub and shower caddy contains only the items you need every day. Clean off the counters in the bathrooms. During showings, you should make sure that toothbrushes and beauty products are stored under the counters.
- Sort towels and linens into piles to display, keep or toss. New fluffy white towels are great to hang on bathroom bars and hooks during showings, but you should keep only a week’s worth of towels under the cabinets and pack or dispose of the others. Used towels in good condition can be donated to thrift stores, but animal shelters love getting towels that have seen a bit more use. Pack away sheets and blankets, leaving only the set you need on the bed and one other set for a quick change.
- Clean out the pantry. We recommend using a sharpie to write expiration dates on cans and boxes as soon as you bring them home from the grocery. This helps you easily identify items which have expired or are about to expire, so you can use them first. Make sure you pay attention to spices and condiments, as well as paper products. While you are working on food storage, take a look in your refrigerator and dispose of items like the homemade jelly a co-worker gave you at Christmas three years ago.
- Pack up your kitchen cabinets to store items that you don’t use every day. The empty space gained from packing up your china, grandmother’s dishes and the glasses you got as a wedding present but have never used can make your cabinets seem much more spacious. Keep only the cooking utensils, pots, pans and casserole dishes that you will need until you move.
- Clean off all flat surfaces throughout the house. This means the toaster oven needs to go to the pantry or to storage and your collection of perfume bottles on your bathroom counter needs to be condensed to the one or two you use every day. You can leave a few decorative items in place on the counters, but the things you don’t use every day should fit in the space you have made in the cabinets. Be sure to put paper towel holders and sponges under the sink for showings.
- Look at the bookcases. You may not want to get rid of your college textbooks, but it is unlikely that you will need them before your move. Bookcases with shelves that only have one third of the space occupied make a home look much more spacious and current. Try stacking some books horizontally and placing plants or small decorative items on the shelves. Don’t take everything from the bookcases because the right items bring warmth and character to a room.
- Clean up the storage shed and garage. Label and stack the paint that a buyer may want you to leave, but pack up or discard extra items you won’t need before you move. Make sure that the water heater and other components that will be inspected are clear of boxes. So many sellers use the garage as a storage container to save the cost of renting a storage unit, but buyers will pay less for a house that needs work - and a stack of boxes looks like work. If it is winter, pack up your coiled garden hoses and summer pool toys to use at your next home.
- Figure out a new home for anything pet related. Some buyers walk in and out when they see a litter box or dog crate. While you can’t erase all evidence of a pet from your house (like a dog door) you want to do your best to make it look like pets don’t live there. Seeing pet items will make a buyer start looking for scratches on the floor, window sills or door sills made by dog claws or sniffing to see if they smell an odor from pets.
- If there are things you do use on a daily basis but want to keep them off cabinets, consider purchasing a few totes to place on shelves in the pantry, garage or under beds. It is much easier to pile things in a tote than it is to make room for them in cabinets.
- When your home is on the market, conduct a 15 minute nightly and 15 minute morning clean up. Do a sweep of flat surfaces, including the floors, to make sure that your house is in showing condition. If you have children, consider writing a contract of the things you expect them to do every day before they leave for school, along with the reward for keeping their commitments.
Lightbulbs - The most effective DIY trick in a Seller's Toolbox
