Household Storage When Selling Your Home
Selling your home isn’t always an easy process but being prepared certainly helps. We’ve put together a few useful tips on selling your home along with some simple household storage ideas.
First and foremost, you need to decide on an accurate and reasonable price. You need to look at similar properties sold in your area over the last 6-12 months and then get a valuation for your home to see how you compare.
When the time is right, preparing or “staging” your house for potential buyers is extremely important. Not only will it ensure your house is sold faster, you can potentially add thousands to the property value.
Find a good estate agent
You wouldn’t trust just any doctor with open-heart surgery so the same should apply when selling your home. A great estate agent can be the difference between getting more than what you bargained for, not selling or getting below the minimum asking price.
Collaborate with your estate agent and decide when the ideal time is to sell. Your area, the type of property, time of year and even small things like school holidays could ultimately affect the buyer’s decision.
Declutter
Get rid of excess items stuffed in boxes all over the house. To make more space during the selling process you might want to remove some of your furniture, especially big and bulky items that make the room appear cluttered and small. You can either put it all in a self-storage unit or leave it with a friend.
If you’re downsizing and want to keep your furniture for your new home, the ideal solution would be short-term household storage. It’s affordable, secure and you have easy access to your unit 24/7/365.
Clean-up and Fix
Take some time out to clean and fix the small but obvious things like a hole in the wall, broken light fixtures or door handles. If possible, replace old and dated light switches (it just looks better) and fix cracked tiles and loose grouting.
Try to make your home look like a new development but with personality. You need to sell your lifestyle as much as you do the actual property. You also want the buyers to feel that they don’t need to spend a fortune getting the house ‘move-in ready’.
- Sand and varnish wooden finishes
- Fresh coat of paint on the walls (interior and exterior). Keep colours neutral though as you don’t want potential buyers to immediately consider the additional costs of repainting
- Get rid of unpleasant smells – Clear and clean drains, bins and rubbish areas
- If you have pets, make sure their mess is also cleaned up
- Get rid of stale smoke smell by leaving bowls of vinegar in the house for 3 days. Once the windows are opened, the smoke and vinegar odour will dissipate
Just as bad smells are detrimental to the cause; good smells can have a great positive effect. Although not always possible, the smell of baked cookies or freshly brewed coffee can make your home more appealing.
Prepare for the Viewing
Make sure you are prepared well in advance of a viewing. Don’t try to clean up while the viewers are there or just before they arrive. Pick up dirty laundry, pack away shoes or toys and try to keep the kitchen free of dirty dishes and unnecessary clutter.
There are many factors to consider when selling your home but don’t let household storage be one of them. We have units of all sizes at affordable rates and have helped many home owners with all their short- and long-term storage concerns. If you have any questions about how best to store your household items, please contact us.
Tell us about your experience of moving and how you made sure your potential buyers were blown away. Did you have to store your overflow of household items when selling? Share you experiences with our readers in the comments section below.