Preparing to Sell Your Home: Decluttering

You’ve made the decision to sell your home and you know you need to do several things to get it ready for sale. You’ve been reading on what you need to do and you keep hearing about “Decluttering”--- and you have several questions ---what is it, how do I get started?

Decluttering is simply getting rid of unneeded “stuff”.

Here are eight quick steps to decluttering your home in order to sell it.

1. Designate a space where you can store things to begin the decluttering process. The best place to choose is the garage -- move your carsoutside to give yourself plenty of room.

2. In that space clearly mark the following areas: Donate, Sell, Move to New Home, Discard. As you go through each room of your home, put them in the one of the above designated areas.

3. Start at the first place a potential buyer is going to see--- your front yard and entrance. Get rid of old planters with dying plants, kid’s toys, and lawn accessories.

4. Now let’s walk through your front door --start with the entry way and the entry closet.  This sometimes becomes a receptacle for unused junk. Get rid of all that unused stuff by using one of the four areas listed above.

5. Go through each room of your home and repeat the above process—Donate, Sell, Move to New Home, Discard. Get a friend to help you if you can’t bear to part with “stuff”.

Focus on all the old magazines, old paperback books, family photos, games, and any faded accessories that are just taking up space.

6. When was the last time you cleaned out your linen closet? Now is the time to do so -- get rid of all of those faded and mismatched towels.

Same thing with your kitchen—get rid of all the containers you’ve been saving “just in case”.

7. Next focus on your side and rear yards--get rid of the same things you did in the front yard.

8. Finally:

Donate your stuff that has some value.

Sell your good stuff at a yard sell, on Ebay or Craig’s List.

Move it to your new home. Pack up items that you are moving and label every box as to the contents and where it should go. You will eventually have to do this step, so do it now.

Discard the rest of the stuff—the easiest way is to rent a dumpster from your trash moving company and park it in your driveway.

Now sit back and enjoy a nice glass of lemonade – you deserve it.