Community Chat

[sydsgma1]

we recently sold our home after 45 years of living there. Because it is a buyers market here, our real estate agent tod us to create a model,home image. That meant total decluttering..we filled 2 dumpsters, repainting, selling a lot of excess furniture, removing carpeting and refinishing wood floors. With help from our kids it was a 3 month process. We also had to replace and upgrade appliances. 

I would guess we spent about 6000 dollars, but recouped it in the sale.

so, my suggestion is that you engage real estate agent and be prepared to get rid of a lot.

A final note...we love living with less stuff.life is easier.

[drizzellla]

The end of June the house next door went up for sale. The house sold before the end of the day for $25,000 more than the asking price.

The house looked like it was staged. No personal stuff anywhere. The bedrooms had a bed with coordinating linens. There was a dresser or two and chair and nightstands. The child's room did have a few toys but not many.

The house is an open concept. And there was minimal furniture. I think the kitchen only had a coffee maker on the counter. Whoever staged it did a good job. It was spacious and comfortable looking.

WELL - the day after the guy bought the house, he turned around and put the house on the market for $50,000 more than he paid for it. And it quickly sold again.

[Somertime]

I would suggest taking pictures of your home, first, pretend you are the buyer.  Do you like what you see?  Remove what you don't like, reorganize your closets, take new pictures.  If you are satisfied call a realtor otherwise, remove more until you are happy with the pictures.

[hckynut]

@CrazyKittyLvr2 

Anything that even resembled clutter was out of there. My sis was a real estate agent and broker and gave me a list of "to do''s" to present my home to others.

She told me potential buyers can visualize their furniture better when there is less of the sellers taking up space. As you said: " it is better to envision". I kept our Townhome spotless and declutter until we were packing up to move. 

She always told me to look at my home as if I were the buyer. Made sense to me.

hckynut 🏒

[Kachina624]

Get rid of family photos and knickknacks.  Fresh paint in a neutral color.  Store big pieces of furniture as they make rooms look smaller.  Make sure there are no animal odors.

When Dad sold his house, which had a small but efficient kitchen, the realtor told him to get rid of the refrigerator as it made the space look even smaller.  Minimal furniture makes rooms seem larger.

[Sooner]

Every home sale is different.  Sometimes it is a death, divorce, elderly person.   Sometimes the seller lives far away and has no money, time, or ability to deal with what's in a house they have to sell.

Not everyone is able to redo a house or even hire people to clean or declutter it.  Some don't have the money, time or mind to do anything but leave.

Home sales are often just something that has to be done. And some people can see through to what living quarters could be, and some have to have it done and laid out for them.

Lives are often what is instead of what should be.

[BunSnoop]

We moved into this house about 7 years ago.   The day of the final inspection the home owners were having a garage sale - there was so much STUFF in the garage.   I asked, where was all of this "stuff" as when we viewed the home it looked like a model home - there were hardly any pictures, vases, figurines, plants, decorative pieces, extra clothes, coats, etc. etc.

They said they rented a storage unit to put all the extra "stuff" in.   It must of worked, as in addition to our offer there were 6 other offers to purchase the home - they did a great staging job and renting a storage unit for a few weeks was a clever way to not have the "stuff" been seen.

They said they also gave away a lot of stuff to the Goodwill store.  They had lived in the house for about 40 years and had collected a lot over the years.

[patbz]

Over the years I have sold four homes; three were empty and fourth lightly staged.  Last one was sold January 2019 and it was fairly high end for our small town.  Some rooms were repainted, some flooring replaced, even small dings in cabinets were fixed. I had a gardner, so hard was nice and kept up. It was not staged, just empty.

[ScrapHappy]

Before we put our house on the market we put our dining room table and hutch along with my husband's "office" stuff (collectibles) in POD storage.  We put the dining room stuff in storage because it was too big for that room, we knew that when we got it.  For staging purposes, I went out and got a much smaller table and chair set.  I took down brown wooden blinds in the kitchen, dining area and living room and replaced with shutters (like I had for the bedrooms).  Wish I did that sooner.  Also refinished the hardwood floors which I wish I also did sooner.  The carpet that was in the bedrooms was about a year old and in excellent shape.  We kept the house in excellent condition and it was very, very clean.  We had an offer that we accepted in three days.

[Sooner]

@ScrapHappy That's the thing about keeping a house up and refreshed.  So often if you don't do it along the way, you "get" to do it for the next buyer to enjoy in order to sell the house.