9 Tips to Decluttering your home for sale

Presenting your home in it's best light starts with setting the scene and tone for your prospective buyers. While we enjoy living in our homes and they are more often than not clean and tidy, it is important to take a step back and look at your home for a buyers point of view. This may mean you need to declutter some zones in your home.

Here are some tips to help you on this journey:

1. Take the time to review - Grab a pen and paper and walk through your house listing the rooms as you go and making notes about what you feel needs to be removed in each room. Look at it from and outsiders point of view. Creating a room by room action list will help you to be productive and efficient when you start actioning the tasks.
2. Depersonalize - While it is lovely for you to be able to see photos of your friends and family on walls and sideboards, you want your buyer to imagine themselves in the house. By depersonalizing the home also means they will spend less time looking at your photos and more time enjoying the home and what it can offer.
3. Assess the zones - Is the way you use your house, how it is intended? While you may be using a landing as a kids play area, would it be better displayed as a reading nook, or additional sitting area.
4. Remove excess furniture -  You may need all the book shelves for your book collection, but the extra furniture has the rick of making the space feel smaller and more cramped than it is. By removing the additional pieces means that the room has the opportunity to feel lighter and larger.
5. Kitchen cull -  clear your benchtops, declutter the cupboards and clear off the top of the fridge. Kitchens are the heart of the home and it is important for your future buyer to be able to see that is is a enjoyable and easy to use space. Now is the time to pack away all those special items, extra crockery sets and items that only get used on a raining day (and maybe even get rid of a few pieces in the process).
6. Pack away - get a head start on your packing. As you have done in the kitchen, start packing away items that you won't need in the near future (don't forget to declutter as you go). Halve the beach towels in the linen cupboards, pack away all the camping gear and put all the kids artworks safely in a box. If you've got a friend or family member with some spare space, then start storing your boxes there, otherwise one side of your garage could be used to start housing the boxes.
7. Give the sense of space - Make sure you always leave at least half a shelf spare in a cupboard, this gives a sense of space and will make the buyer see that there is room for more things.
8. Outdoors - throw away the broken pots, hoses and kids toys. Put all the pool toys in a outdoor box, or even pack them away.
9. Enlist some help - Getting a professional organiser in to help you declutter and get your home ready has the potential to save you time and money.

We hope this will help to get you thinking about what needs to be done in your home to help declutter and get your home ready for sale. If you want some more tips and tricks, please speak to one of experienced during your FREE appraisal or for further information contact one of our recommended professional organisers here.

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