Removing Clutter

Part of preparing your North County home for sale is to remove “clutter.”   This is the hardest thing for most sellers to do because they are emotionally attached to everything in the house. After years of living in the same North County home, clutter collects in such a way that may not be evident to the homeowner. However, it does affect the way buyers see the your North County real estate. Clutter collects on shelves, counter tops, drawers, closets, garages, attics, and basements.

Take a step back and pretend you are a buyer. Let a friend help point out areas of clutter, as long as you can accept their views without getting upset. Let your North County Realtor help you, too.  Gary Harmon has over 20 years of experience and easily recognizes things you shoud do to get ready to sell.  Removing the clutter from your North County real estate is key to the buyer liking your home.

Kitchen Clutter

The kitchen is a good place to start removing clutter. First, get everything off the counters. Put things like the toaster in a cabinet and take them out when you use them. Find a place where you can store everything in cabinets and drawers. Of course, you may notice that you do not have enough cabinet space in which to put everything. Clean them out. The dishes, pots and pans that rarely get used? Put them in a box and put that box in storage.

North County home buyers will open all your cabinets and drawers, especially in the kitchen. They want to be sure there is enough room for their “things.” If your kitchen cabinets, pantries, and drawers look jammed full, it sends a negative message to the buyer and does not promote an image of lots of storage.

If you have a “junk drawer,” get rid of the junk. If you have a rarely used crock pot, put it in storage. Do this with every cabinet and drawer. Make your North County real estate look spacious.

If you have a large amount of foodstuffs crammed into the shelves or pantry, use them up. Canned goods are heavy and you don´t want to be lugging them to a new house.

Beneath the sink is very critical, too. Make sure the area beneath the sink is as empty as possible, removing all extra cleaning supplies. You should scrub the area down as well, and determine if there are any tell-tale signs of water leaks that may cause a homebuyer to hesitate in buying your North County home.

Other Types of Clutter

Closet Clutter:  Closets are great for accumulating clutter. We are talking about extra clothes and shoesand other things you rarely wear.  Do without these items for a couple of months by putting them in a box. Sometimes there are shoeboxes full of “stuff” or other accumulated personal items you no longer need. 

Furniture Clutter:  Many people have too much furniture in certain rooms. Maybe, not too much for your own personal living needs, but too much to give the illusion of space that a North County home buyer would like to see. You may want to tour some builders´ North County homes for sale to see how they place furniture in their model homes. Observe how they place furniture in the models so you get some ideas on what to remove and what to keep. Storage Area Clutter:  Basements, garages, attics, and sheds accumulate not only clutter, but junk. These areas should be as empty as possible so that North County buyers can imagine what they would do with the space. Remove anything that is not essential and take it to the storage area  Removing clutter is certaintly one of the first, cheapest, and most important things you can do prepar your North County home for sale.  Other important steps before listing are fixing the interior, remodeling where necessary, and fixing up the outside of your North County home.