Are you getting your home ready to list it for sale?  Preparing to sell a home in West Chester, Liberty Township or Beckett Ridge can be an overwhelming task if you are not prepared.  The process of getting your home ready can be simplified by breaking the areas of your home up into groups. 

In my previous posts, >>Preparing Your Home To Sell, we covered Curb Appeal, Front Entry / Porch & Landscaping and in >>Preparing Your Home To Sell (Part 2) , your first impression was covered. 

Today we will cover the first floor living areas including the formal living room & dining rooms, the family room and first floor study.  When you are trying to get propspective buyers to fall in love with your home, you need to offer them enough space that they can easily imagine themselves and their belongings living comfortably in your home.  They are going to make observations about whether the space inside your home feels open and spacious or tight and cramped.  Give the buyers the vision of enough space for their wants and needs and you will get your home sold.

De-Personalize:  Everyone’s home is defined by the homeowner’s personal taste and right now your home is defined by yours.  You need to transform your home to meet your buyer’s need.  To do this, you must take “you” out of your property.  In essence what you are doing is de-cluttering.  You will eventually have to pack up your belongings anyway,  so start now by packing up all of your collections of figurines, sports collectables, commerative dishes, etc.  At best these collections will distract buyers from truly seeing your home, worse yet they may likely see them as clutter.

**Keep in mind; you may need to rent a storage space for a short period of time to store all of the items that you are going to be packing up and/or moving early.**

In the family room and formal living room you will need to remove or replace any personal or family photos.  You want buyers to feel at home in your property and if they are surrounded by photos of you and your family they will feel as though they are just guests in your home.  They may also be distracted from looking at the features of your home by all of your photos.  Also needing to be removed are any signs, pillows or plaques with written sayings on them.  There are many great quotes to be found on household items, they just don’t have a place in the home sale process.

In these rooms less furniture is better also.  Take an honest look at how much furniture you have.  Can you remove that extra table to open up some space?  Any furniture that blocks a window must be removed.  Removing the ottoman is almost always a good idea also.  Any freestanding bookcases in these two rooms must go.  They aren’t adding any value and they certainly have clutter on the shelves.  Also needing to be removed are baskets, decorative screens, magazine stands and all live plants.  Remove all items from fireplace mantels and from window sills.

In the dining room, remove any leaves from the dining room table until there are no more than 4-6 chairs situated around it.  Again, here in the dining room all collectibles, excess dishware, etc. must be removed.   Any glass enclosed dining room furniture pieces should be very sparcely decorated/filled.

In the study/home office the desk top must be completely cleared off of all stacks of papers, files, magazines, etc.  All extra tables, freestanding bookcases and mis-matched file cabinets must be removed as well.  On the walls, all of the awards, diplomas and photos must also be removed.  This space must be staged to create a space that the buyer can picture themselves working in.  If this space is being used as something other than a home office or if the furniture here is mismatched, consideration should be given to buying a nice desk and chair to stage this room or contact a home stager for rental options.  Any built-in bookshelves in this room or any other room in the house should hold only hardcover books that fit properly on the shelves.  No paperback books or oversized books, pack them up!

Why do you have to do all of this you ask?  Because you are going to be trying to sell your home for the highest  possible price that you can get and clutter costs money.  De-cluttering your home for sale will help you sell for more.  If you list your home for sale without doing any home staging and your home doesn’t sell, your 1st price reduction is likely going to be $5,000 – $10,000, so de-clutter.  It’s worth it!  Keep in mind I’m not suggesting you throw your belongings away, just pack them up and put them in storage.  All you are really doing here is getting a jump start on the packing for when your home sells.

You are now on your way to creating a great  impression for home buyers as you continue preparing your home for sale in today’s West Chester, Liberty Township, Beckett Ridge and Mason, Ohio real estate market.  In the next post in this series of articles we’ll cover Preparing Your Kitchen.

Read the first article in this series here >>  Preparing Your Home For Sale In Today’s Real Estate Market (Part 1)

Read the second article in this series here >> Preparing Your Home To Sell In Today’s Real Estate Market (Part 2)