The Game-Plan: De-Clutter and Clean

What Can You Do? A Messy Home

Despite this being after the staging section of our Game Plan, the most essential aspect of ‘staging’ a home is the de-cluttering that is required to make a home show better. Clutter eats equity – this is the best way to think about clutter. Here are some rules of thumb that will help you as a Realtor or a seller:

• All counter tops, desk tops, or the tops of any furniture should be clear of everything, except items that are necessary, e.g. a clock on your bedside table;
• Remove 50-75% of EVERYTHING from your closets and cabinets (yes, that much); It is ideal to have the top shelf of the closet, and the floor empty; Buyers DO look in cabinets and closets, so making it seem as if there is ample space for storage is the goal in this tip;
• If you have a pot rack, or are holding cook-wear and other kitchen items in plain sight, figure a way to get rid of some of it, or put it into your newly cleaned cabinets; This correlates to shortage of storage/cabinet space from a buyer's eyes;
• In bathrooms, get rid of everything in plain sight except the soap dispenser and towels; Regarding Staging, put clean white (new and unused) towels onto the towel rack for each showing;
• The TV stand should have your cable box, game system(s), and router, but nothing else (i.e. no games, dvds, and other items in plain sight);
• Kids toys should be kept in containers, and the majority removed – ask your child which toys he wants to play with for the next month, and put the rest in a box in the garage, for now;
• It is better to fill the garage/attic with boxes, and have an overflowing garage, than to have all your stuff out and about inside the home.

The goal of de-cluttering is to remove the distractions that are common in every home. A buyer needs to have the best opportunity to look at the home, and not the stuff. Considering this is a zero-cost solution to help a home sell, every homeowner should do their utmost to take these tips to heart.

​Hand-in-hand with de-cluttering is the last step before photography - cleaning. It is essential that for every showing, that the home is picked up in advance. You might make a habit of cleaning every morning before going to work, to avoid any issues here. But it is also a good idea to do a deep clean prior to listing, especially if it has never been done before. Hire a company, as it makes it so much easier for you. You can find someone for $30-$50 per hour, which is well-worth the money. You should also have all carpets cleaned – for a vacant home, I have a carpet cleaner that does one ‘zone’ for $50, basically any room is considered a zone. Make sure to clean inside and outside of windows as well. 

For a seller, the de-cluttering and cleaning processes are infinitely low cost solutions to making the home smell and feel livable for a new buyer. 

This article is one of several about Listing Real Estate - The Game-Plan.
The next topic in our Game-Plan is Photography.