Getting your home ready for sale

If you’ve lived in your home for twenty, thirty, forty years, you’ll know that things don’t pile up all at once. A spare room becomes the room where things go. The shed fills up one “I’ll sort that later” at a time. Then one day an agent is coming over to talk about a sale date and you’re standing in the hallway wondering where on earth to start.

If that’s you, you’re not lazy and you’re not alone. Life just happened in that house. Here’s how to get it ready without losing your mind.

Don’t start with the hardest room

It’s tempting to tackle the worst space first and get it over with. Don’t. Start somewhere small and easy, like the bathroom cupboard or the hall table. Finishing something, even something tiny, gives you the energy to keep going. Leave the garage, the shed and the boxes of photos for when you’ve got some wins behind you.

Talk to your agent early

Before you spend a cent or lift a box, ask your agent what actually matters to buyers in your area. Often it’s less than you’d think. Buyers want to see the space, the light and the bones of the house. They don’t need it to look like a magazine. Knowing what your agent cares about helps you put your energy in the right places.

Clear first, clean second, style last

Cleaning a cluttered room is like mopping around furniture. Get the excess out first, then clean properly, then think about how it looks. Doing it in that order saves you doing everything twice. We recommend using the stickering system first, sorting items into different categories:

1) Keep

2) Donate

3) Sell

4) Dispose

Do this well and the process will be far easier!

You probably don’t need new furniture

There’s a lot of pressure to stage a home with new cushions, rugs and fancy throws. In most cases you don’t need to. What makes a room look good for sale is space. Take out about a third of what’s in each room, pull furniture back from the walls a little, clear the benchtops and open the curtains. Your own furniture, with room to breathe, usually looks better than you expect. In fact, when we do sale-ready transformations for clients, we use things already in the home. Often we rearrange things to make a room feel more inviting and style using pieces you already own.

Bench tops, floors and walls

If you only focus on three things, make it these:

• Benchtops: clear almost everything off. Kitchen, bathroom, laundry. It instantly makes a home feel bigger.

• Floors: if buyers can see the floor, the room looks larger. Boxes in corners and piles under beds all count.

• Walls: take down some of the photos and keep a few favourites. Buyers need to picture their own lives there, and that’s hard when they’re looking at your grandkids.

  
  

Don’t forget the bits you’ve stopped seeing

After a long time in one place, we all stop noticing things. The pile on top of the fridge. The pot plants that gave up years ago. The second fridge in the garage. Ask a friend, or your agent, to walk through and tell you honestly what they notice. It can be a bit confronting but very useful.

Outside counts too

Buyers form an opinion before they reach the front door. Clear the driveway and verandah, tidy the garden beds, and deal with the stuff that’s accumulated beside the shed. On acreage properties in the Scenic Rim, this can be the biggest job of all, so give it time.

Make decisions, not piles

The trap with a big clear-out is moving things from one room into another. Every item needs a destination: keep, donate, sell or dispose. If you’re keeping it but don’t need it during the sale, pack it properly and get it out of the house, either to a family member’s place or into storage.

A quick tip: most charity shops no longer take furniture, so ring around before you load the car.

It’s okay if this is emotional

Getting a home ready for sale often means facing the fact that you’re leaving it. Every cupboard can bring something up. Go easy on yourself. Take breaks, ask for help, and don’t feel you need to make every decision about sentimental things right now. Boxing them up to go through later is a perfectly good plan.

If it’s all just too much

Sometimes the honest answer is that it’s too big a job to do on your own, and that’s fine. At Dewin Estate Transitions we help people across the Gold Coast and Scenic Rim get their homes sale-ready. We sort, organise donations and resale, clear what’s not needed, and work with the furniture and belongings you already have so your home looks its best without buying new things.

If you’d like a hand, get in touch for a no obligation chat.