As a homeowner, you may be eyeing the favorable housing market conditions many sellers have been taking advantage of recently. According to HomeLight’s End of Year 2021 Report, house prices are widely expected to rise even more in the coming months — as noted by top real estate agents.
Even though sellers have the advantage in the housing market, any good realtor would recommend some simple home maintenance before staking a ‘For Sale’ sign up in your front yard. To get the best possible price for your home, one of the simplest tasks a homeowner can tackle is decluttering.
Why is decluttering so important?
As a rule of thumb, real estate agents always recommend deep cleaning, depersonalizing, and decluttering a home prior to sale. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the latter of the three tasks has become especially important.
The pandemic forced large households inside thanks to the wave of stay-at-home orders. Average families started to feel cramped in their current living quarters. While stay-at-home orders have lifted in most places, companies and schools have listened to the requests to make remote work and learning a permanent fixture. As a result, buyers rushed to the market seeking homes with more space.
Decluttering an overcrowded household will tremendously help the home seem much more spacious. Not only will a decluttered household be extremely more appealing to potential buyers and ensure you’ll sell your house for a great price, but who wouldn’t want to enjoy the perks of a tidy, organized space while waiting for the house to close?
Where to start
The living room, master bedroom, and kitchen are the most important rooms for sellers to stage. You’ll want these rooms to be neat, spacious, and decluttered, as these will be the rooms potential buyers are most concerned about.
Next, a great way to impress your buyers is to declutter and stage a home office. As noted, families were stepping on each other’s toes during lockdown orders, and employees who switched to remote work desperately sought separate areas for work and recreation.
Offices, however, are notorious for clutter. If you’ve owned your home for a long time, you might have an office space littered with old postcards, financial documents, and miscellaneous memorabilia. The best way to impress your buyers is to file away everything necessary, toss anything unimportant, and make this area seem as spacious as possible.
Getting started: tips for decluttering quickly and efficiently
If you’ve been living in your home for multiple years, you’re probably overwhelmed with the thought of decluttering. You’re not alone.
There’s no one way to declutter, so just find a method that works for you. Some people opt to set timers and divy up their decluttering tasks over a few days. Try setting a timer for 15 minutes each day. During that time, focus on clearing out as much as possible from your storage spaces. Remember to keep everything labeled and organized during this process.
Another helpful technique is the 12-12-12 method. This means that every day you must collect 12 items to keep, 12 items to donate, and 12 items to throw away. By the end of a month, your home will be substantially cleared and organized.
Remember, anything you haven’t used in a year — unless it has sentimental value — should go. So long as you stay organized and motivated, you should have no trouble clearing up some extra space and impressing your potential buyers!
