Getting Started: First 3 Things to Do Once You’ve Decided to Sell

Selling your home is never easy. Oftentimes, we are bound by our emotions, and all the memories we have from our time spent making our house a home. Whether we lived in the house for 2 years or 20 years, preparing ourselves, and the house, to sell, is always a challenging task. The to-do list is endless and time is ticking. Where do you start?

1. De-Clutter, Purge, and Donate: The amount of “stuff” that comes out of our homes sometimes makes us wonder if we have hidden closets inside the walls. Likely, we don’t need everything we have.

Take the opportunity to organize and separate the stuff you need to keep from the stuff you can donate. Those Backstreet Boys t-shirts and CDs…they can go. Hello Spotify?

2. Get medium and large sized plastic bins: preferably clear bins, so that you can see what’s inside. As you begin to purge your items, you may as well begin packing the stuff you’re keeping. Avoid bins that are too large, as they will get heavy and hard to move around, and make sure to find bins with easy handles to carry. I usually carry some stick-on labels which are helpful at identifying the bins. Trust me, a few weeks in, and you’ll forget what you put in there.

3. Depersonalize the space: This is likely the most challenging task, since the things that make our home charming, may also be personal. Think family pictures, religious items, sports memorabilia… When a potential buyer walks in, we want to make sure they can envision themselves in the house, and removing anything personal gives them the ability to do so.

It’s a starting point. Once you’ve been able to pack away most of your items, de-clutter, and depersonalize, you can shift the focus to the other tasks on the to-do list. There is still some work left, but the toughest part is done. Onwards to fresh paint, staging and décor, and finally list it.