When I’m doing a home consultation with my clients, I’m walking thru the house room by room, and I can see the family’s story, the family’s journey, the family’s growth and with each story and journey and growth, families acquire a lot of things, which is totally fine but when it comes to selling your home we need to remove those things and instead create a blank canvas for another family to begin their story. Now, when I say “blank canvas” I’m not saying remove everything from the home, I’m talking about decluttering and depersonalizing so Buyers can see the value in your home and envision themselves living there.
So here are my five steps to declutter fast and get your house sold!
Decluttering Step by Step
- Step #1 Have the Right Mindset – I know, here we go again with mindset, what does decluttering have to do with mindset? You remember the story I told you early when I walk through a house and saw the family’s story and journey and growth… all those things were acquired over time, and for some people it takes time to begin to detach themselves from a home. If you’re going to declutter and depersonalize you need to prepare yourself both mentally and physically to begin this process, so keep reminding yourself, at the end of the day you want to get your house sold quickly and for the best price.
- Step #2 Storage on Hand – Before you tackle any rooms you want to make sure you have storage on hand… meaning, boxes, bins, plastic bins with lids, garbage bags, labels, markers… all the things you will need to store items and label properly. This is very important to have right from the start and you will be grateful you took the time to do this when you’re unpacking in your new home.
- Step#3 Overflow Room – When decluttering you want to have a designated space in your home to put items that will eventually be removed from your house before it goes on the market. During this process your home will look out of sorts. I tell my clients it’s going to look worse before it will look better. So please keep that in mind, you don’t have to declutter and organize at the same time, you could focus just on decluttering and then organize the overflow room afterwards. A tip on the overflow room: People often think the basement would be the best place but if you have space on the main level or even the garage or shed, somewhere you don’t have to go up and down too many stairs, if possible, because it’s eventually going to have to be removed from the home anyways and you don’t want to make more work for yourself.
- Step #4 Four Way Purge– I like to have four separate sections when decluttering and it’s preferable to do this in your overflow area. 1st pile is Garbage and Recycling, 2nd is Donate, 3rd is Sell and 4th is Keep. By separating the items, it makes the process much easier and quicker to go through especially when you have items you’re pricing to sell. It’s all together, you could take pictures of each item easily and get it ready to put on the websites to sell.
- Step #5 Least Sentimental – When decluttering a lot of people like to start with the smallest room first because it would be easier and that makes sense, but in this case, you’re decluttering to sell, not decluttering to stay, so I tell my clients it’s actually better to start with the room that has the least number of sentimental items. It helps to get the ball rolling.
Decluttering Checklist
So there you have it, my 5 Steps to declutter fast and get your house sold. Also, I created a Checklist specifically geared to Sellers. If you’d like a copy just email me asking for the Seller’s Decluttering Checklist and I’ll be sure to send you a copy.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog!
