The process to sell your home, pack up your possessions, and move to a new home can bring with it a sense of dread and a lot of stress. Because there are so many tasks to complete, plans to make, and household items to pack and move, you should start early and work smartly to minimize your stress during this project. Here are some tips to help you prepare to list your home for sale and boost its chances for a quick sale, and to make your pack-up-and-move process simpler.
Clean Up Your Home and Yard
When you plan to list your home for sale, you want it to look as attractive as possible, and be free of damage and neglect to its interior and exterior. If you are working with a realtor they will likely advise you on any maintenance you should take care of to improve your home's curb appeal and interior appearance. This may include replacing carpets and damaged or aging vinyl flooring, refinishing hardwood floors, and remodeling an aged or dated bathroom or kitchen.
While you make these repairs, you will end up with quite a bit of remodeling waste. So you will need to rent a home and yard dumpster to put into it all the refuse and waste from your home fix-up projects. And you can also use the rented dumpster to toss out any broken or non-salvageable items you can't donate to charity and can no longer use. This will help you by reducing your possessions when you are packing to move your household.
Call your local dumpster rental or waste management company for a dumpster rental. They have a variety of sizes, from a small dumpster to a large roll-off dumpster, so calculate your needs and arrange for delivery of the size you need. On average, a home renovation project produces more than 22 pounds of refuse for every square foot in the renovation. So, if you are renovating 500 square feet in your home, for example, you can expect to create over 11,000 pounds of waste that you will need to dispose of.
After you have finished placing your construction waste into the dumpster, the waste company will collect the bin to transport and dispose of the waste with a local landfill. This is a great deal of refuse weight you won't have to deal with disposing of with your own truck.
Store Your Extra Belongings
Once you have completed the necessary repairs and updates to your home, you will want to get your home ready for potential buyers to view. And to help showcase its interior spaces, you should eliminate clutter and excessive items and storage that make your home's spaces appear smaller. It is true that a room stuffed full of furniture and items will look smaller than a room with only a few essential pieces of furniture.
Rent a temporary portable storage container to store your excess items and clutter to minimize the items in your home. This will make your home appear larger, more spacious, and help the home's interior energy flow better.
By renting a portable storage container you will also be one step closer to moving, as you will have a big part of your extra belonging boxed up and ready to transport. Check with your local storage container company to find out their shipping policy to transport your possessions when you are ready to move.
Put Your Home on the Market
Once you have prepared your home for sale, contact your realtor to evaluate your home and set a sales price. Then, you can take photos and gather the details to post your home for sale on the local real estate listings database.