Selling a Home - The Preparation Stage
Getting started
You want your house to be impressive and friendly enough with future buyers? Then clear the clutter.
This might be among the most difficult thing you would do with your house. During your years of ownership, you might have attached emotions into your house that it would be hard to detach yourself from it. But this is more than that.
Years of emotional attachment could mean years of clutter collection. We collect all sorts of materials that could be difficult to separate ourselves from. This clutter would be evident on the top shelves, drawers, countertops, closets, attics, garages and basements.
Well, if you want to sell your house immediately, then you must let the buyer see more open spaces.
Look then at your house from an anonymous point of view. Try disconnecting your emotions for awhile and see it from another person's eyes. If you can't do this then find someone who will gladly do it for you.
You might not realize the extent of help this activity could bring but you would soon find that the precious materials in your eyes are not as much precious from the view of another.
This can't be done unless you start thinking your house as a commodity. If you would have noticed, when you buy a house the real estate agents would refer to it as your "home" but if you are selling one, he would make it a point to call it as "property". This helps the process of realization occur faster since words connote even the emotions that are embodied in each article.
Your realization must come from the point that it is no longer your home but theirs. By doing this, you will re-channel possibilities that could inadvertently make the selling a longer process.
Separate the person from the personality
When selling a house, be prepared to separate even the most valuable things from it. It would do you no good if you would leave picture frames with your own photos on it. Instead, leave anonymous items that would make the buyer feel that this is a potential home for him and not a trace of your own personality could be found.
If the buyer of your property sees anything that would remind him that this is not his home yet, such as a family picture hanging on the wall, you could shatter their hopes that this is the potential home for them. These would leave your marks in the house which in turn, could repel the prospect of recreating the personality of the home from their own point of view.
Remove all things that would remind the buyers of the memories of the previous owners. Put them all in storage somewhere apart from the attic, garage and basement.
The two suggestions we have given here are not only effective for making your house a bit friendlier for sale. This also eases the hard process of letting go of something you have owned yourself for long. Undeniably, this would take much effort on your side since it is not that easy to make you forget of something you have accustomed yourself to love.
Related Tags: selling a home, sell houses, selling houses fast
Mario Churchill is a freelance author and has written over 200 articles on various subjects. For more information on selling houses fast checkout his home selling tips.
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