Most homeowners find themselves accumulating more items than they intend to, unconsciously. With several storage closets, extra bedrooms, and a garage, you can easily fill your house with endless things. Unfortunately, these items can get in your way if you want to sell your home. Homebuyers often want to visualize the potential of the house and picture themselves inside before buying a home. This becomes impossible if your house is full of your items.Nonetheless, homeowners can still sell their cluttered homes with the following tips;
Find all the important documents
Gathering crucial documents in a cluttered home might prove challenging. You should collect all important documents and organize them in easily accessible folders. Apart from educational certificates, you should gather all your mortgage documents. If you took a primary mortgage, secondary mortgage, or home equity loan using the house, you should have all the associated paperwork.
If you inherited the house, contact the mortgage company and other lenders to get proof that you are the owner of the estate. Similarly, you should gather documentation on property taxes and HOA dues. You should pay property taxes and HOA dues until you successfully transfer the property to the new buyer.
Rent a storage unit
If you can’t sort everything or are in a hurry to list your house before the real estate market declines, renting a storage unit gives you ample time to sort through the items in your home. You can choose between portable storage units, full-service units, and self-storage units.
Portable storage units are excellent options if you have enough space on your property. Contrary to what most homeowners think, load large items, such as furniture, into the storage unit to create enough room to clear the remaining clutter in your house.
The other option is renting a full-service storage facility. Most full-service storage companies pack, pick, haul, and store customers’ items in their warehouses. A self-storage facility is also another option to consider. However, unlike full-service facilities, you should hire moving experts to move your items to self-storage facilities.
You should choose depending on the quantity of your clutter, cost, and security status of your items.
Discard unnecessary items
Once you’ve gathered the crucial documents and stored non-essentials safely, you should discard the unnecessary items. For this, you can rent a dumpster to remove junk. Most dumpsters carry between 10 and 40 cubic yards. Choose the appropriate size depending on the type and weight of items due for disposal.
That said, not all items are disposable. For instance, hazardous waste and electronic items can’t be disposed to landfills. Therefore, you should consider recycling batteries, electronic devices, and hazardous materials to protect the environment. Talk to your local household waste facilities for guidance on where to take these items.
Deep clean and complete repairs
Deep cleaning and decluttering can increase property value by approximately 3 to 5%. You should ensure that your house is super clean, right from window sills, blinds, ceiling, exterior walls to the roof. You should consider hiring cleaning and junk removal experts to achieve this.
Similarly, clutter could have obscured several problems in your home. Therefore, after decluttering, you should conduct a thorough inspection to identify areas that need fixing. Similarly, hiring experts in pre-listing inspection can help identify crucial areas that need repairs or upgrades to increase property value.
Bottom Line
Appearance is an important element in the real estate market. This makes selling a cluttered house quite tricky. Fortunately, with the tips mentioned above, you can stage your home properly to attract potential buyers in the competitive real estate market. Working with experts in junk removal, deep cleaning and decluttering, and even real estate agents can ease this process. However, you can skip most of these if you get a cash offer.
