Home Staging Services Los Angeles: Home Staging Tip #2: Is Too Much Stuff Standing Between You And a SOLD sign?

Hi… I’m Darlene Parris with UPSTAGED! a Professional Home Staging Company right here in Los Angeles.

Today I’m going to talk with you about tip # 2 of our 5 part series of how to avoid deal killing criticisms when trying to sell your home.

Today’s tip has everything to do with decluttering. I know that on the surface, decluttering sounds very easy like ‘well I’ll just put my junk in a closet’. Well, not necessarily the case when it comes to decluttering your house to prepare it for sale.

Let’s take a minute and think about what buyers are and what they do. When buyers show up to your open house or to view your home, buyers are going to go through all of your cabinetry, your kitchen, your drawer space, they’re going to open up every single closet you own, they’re going to look at how much counter space there is in your kitchen, they’re even going to look into your garage because all buyers and everyone needs space for their stuff.

That said, if you’ve just taken all of your things from the living room floor and from the bedroom that are unsightly that you don’t want around, and just shoved it into a closet somewhere, then technically you’re showing the buyer that they won’t have enough space in what will be their new home. And remember you’re trying to sell a buyer your home but also a lifestyle that goes with the home.

So That said, decluttering is more than just taking your stuff and sticking it into a corner. You will really have to take a look at how much you have and how much you need. You may look at off sight storage for some of the things that you can put away for your future home. So if you don’t have enough garage space to pack things away neatly and label them as such… living room, dining room, etc, as you’re moving and stack them neatly into your garage space, then doing an off site storage unit would be the answer if you have excessive things.

Of course closets, you want to pare down things that you don’t need. And you can always prepack. So for example, if its summertime and you’re selling, well you can certainly pack up all of your winter clothes and heavy garments and such. Prepack those things and have them labeled in your garage or off site storage and have those things out of the way so that when buyers or prospective buyers are looking at your home, they see the kind of space that they would be able to enjoy once they’ve purchased your home.

The same thing is true for kitchen counter tops. You don’t need every single kitchen appliance you own on top of those counter tops. Maybe a few would be out but again, neatly organized so that a prospective buyer can visualize themselves, not in your old house but their new house.

I’m Darlene Parris with UPSTAGED! Professional Home Staging Company here in Los Angeles. Thank you so much for joining me today. And tune in next week when we’ll cover the 3^rd tip on ways to avoid deal killing criticisms when trying to sell your home.

Thanks… see you then!