I’m starting a five part series on prepping a listing to be sold. If the goal is to make the most profit off the sale, these blog posts will highlight the major steps you must take before your home becomes available for showings. Even if you just want to quickly sell a home without much effort, some of these tips will be very useful to make sure you still earn top dollar for your effort. The various topics covered will be decluttering, upgrading, repairing, landscaping, cleaning, staging and maintaining.

The first part in this five part series is: Decluttering

When it comes to preparing your home or listing to be sold, you must take action to make sure it appeals to as many potential buyers as possible. When buyers are swiping through their favorite feed looking for a home to buy or an agent to hire, you don’t want them to see a cluttered mess. You want them to see a clean and tidy home that they could see themselves living in.

Decluttering is just the first step of the home-beautification process. You must remove as many unnecessary and “ugly” things as possible. And by declutter, I don’t mean moving or neatly organizing the items somewhere else in your house. The idea is to empty the home as much as possible. This means putting the stuff in storage, attic, basement or garage. If you can put the items off-site, the better. You want potential customers to see the amount of storage space available to them, not the amount of storage space you’ve occupied. If your garage, attic, or basement are particularly interesting, you definitely want to use those spaces to your advantage and not fill them with junk and boxes.

Decluttering will do a two things: Firstly, it will make your eventual move go a lot faster. When my wife and I sold our last home, we spent nearly 3 weeks decluttering. Once it came time to move, the final pack went by so much faster. Secondly, it will undoubtedly make your home more beautiful and inviting for strangers. Potential buyers don’t care about the 17 family photos on your wall, the placement of your comfiest chair in relation to the tv or the ugly lamp that means a lot to you but nobody likes. Strangers want to see an optimal home they could see themselves living in. If your home is cluttered and crammed full of items, your client will feel that.

The very first step to help you through this daunting process is to create a list for each room. Write down the items you don’t need. You can be generic. Use this as a check-off sheet. Once one room is finished go on to the next. You can also use this list to write down other things such as replace a light bulb or paint or fix a broken light switch. This list will help you stay on track by keeping you in check. This list will also help keep your stress down with the act of checking boxes releasing endorphins.

The declutter process is really based on common-sense. What do you absolutely need to live in your home while it’s on the market? Mostly likely 75% of the items in your closets, in your cabinets (sans kitchen), and under your bed can packed away. Things in your attic or basement can also be packed and put into storage. This part is the hardest and takes the longest. Most of the stuff in your closets you don’t need but you do use it or want it. This is also a good time to get rid of clothes you no longer wear and organize the master bedroom closet. This area alone can be a big selling point for a lot of homes. Often times I’ll shoot a house and the master closet is stuffed to the gills, really limiting the impact if could have had.

Once you’ve gone through all your closets and storage areas, you need to go through and examine your decorations and artwork. Do you have a theme? Is that theme current? Will that theme appeal to a large market? Does your theme fit the style of the house? This part can be tricky and best left to a professional. But, if you can simplify and theme-ify (Bush-ism) your home, do so. Look for patterns and similarities in them. Don’t be afraid to move art and decorations around the home to create themes. This step also includes removal of family photos and art. When a home has these items on the wall, it takes the potential buyer out of the moment and reframes the property as someone else’s home. When people aren’t visible, it’s easier for them to visualize themselves living there. Not to mention a lot of family photos are corny and awkward. It’s best to remove them.