Parting with your home can be difficult even if you are excited to move to a new place. After all, this was where you lived and made your memories.
If you’re a first time home seller, selling your home can be emotionally hard. It seems like everywhere you look you are picturing the good times you’ve had there. You’ve put a lot of yourself into this house and now it’s time to move on. Maybe purchasing the house was the first step you made that really made you feel like you’ve stepped into the “real” world. Or you can only think of your little one and the first steps they took in the house. Whatever it is that’s holding you to the house is what makes selling it so hard. So here are some ideas on how you can jump out of the emotion of selling and get into the business of selling your house.
First of all, when getting your house ready to sell, I suggest that you start to put away personal items and pictures. Packing away some of what made your house a home will make the transition easier. You need to think of your house as a marketable commodity. Property. Real estate. Your goal is to get others to see it as their potential home, not yours. If you do not consciously make this decision, you can inadvertently create a situation where it takes longer to sell your property.
You want buyers to view the house as their potential home. When a potential homebuyer sees your family photos hanging on the wall, it puts your own brand on the home and momentarily shatters their illusions about living in the house themselves.
Buyers love to snoop and will open closet and cabinet doors. Think of the message it sends if items fall out! Now imagine what a buyer believes about you if she sees everything organized. It says you probably take good care of the rest of the house as well. With this in mind, I recommend that you pack away sports trophies, collectible items, knick-knacks, and souvenirs. Put them in a box, then rent a storage area for a few months and put the box in the storage unit, not in a garage or a closet.
You may have to realize that the cute border in your daughter’s room, the mural you painted in the living room, or other decorative things done to the house are not what some buyers are looking for, and that you may have to tone down a room or remove certain items to make the house more sellable. It may be hard to paint over it, or change it back, but keep telling yourself that it’s not your house anymore. Think of your new home as a blank canvas! The more you look forward to your new home, the more you’ll start thinking of the old one as a house.
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