How to Depersonalize Your North Atlanta Home for Sale

How to Depersonalize Your North Atlanta Home for Sale

How to Depersonalize Your North Atlanta Home for Sale by The Mary Ellen Vanaken Team of Keller Williams Realty www.mevhomes.com

Making the decision to sell your home may start with a thousand steps.  You will be hiring a real estate agent and getting the home ready for the market, just to name a few.

Homeowners DO have a tool belt full of items that makes this project easier. The most powerful tool of all is decorating or staging. Staging your home will help it sell faster and for more money.

Before you stage the home, a clean, uncluttered space is needed. DECLUTTER!

There are several reasons homeowners should clear their homes of the clutter accumulated from daily living. The main reason is that clutter makes people anxious. You do not want a potential buyer to feel is stressed or anxious when touring your home.

Since most clutter in a home is a collection of personal items, depersonalizing the home means clearing clutter. Sure, all those personal items are what makes your house a home, but too many of them may prevent its sale.

Buyers need to be able to imagine what it would be like living in your home, surrounded by their own belongings. Your belongings is a distraction.

Depersonalizing: What's Involved?

Depersonalizing is the act of removing most items of a personal nature. Family photographs, souvenirs, collections, DVD and CD collections and framed diplomas, degrees and awards are a few examples of items to pack up and store.

Getting Started

Since you'll need boxes for the move, buying them now saves work later on. Buy several boxes for each room in the house, and don't forget newspaper or other packing material to protect breakables.
The best way to go about depersonalizing the home is to do it one room at a time.

Living Room and Family Room

Since this is where families spend most of their time, these rooms will most likely take the longest. Items to remove include:
Toy bins or boxes.
Toys (including pet toys).
Family photos.
DVDs, video games and CDs.
Excess magazines and catalogs.
Newspapers.
Craft items.
Clothing.

Kitchen

Now we move from the most challenging room to the easiest room to depersonalize – the kitchen. The biggest clutter catcher in this room is the refrigerator. Remove the magnets, sticky note reminders, kids' artwork and personal photographs. In fact, remove everything from the front, sides and top of the refrigerator.

Many families use the kitchen counter as a mail drop. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but mail is highly personal and needs to be put away, out of sight.

Bedrooms

Since bedrooms are the most personal of all the spaces in a home, they can be challenging to depersonalize. Remove family photos, of course, but you may need to go beyond that. Imagine a posh hotel room and remove anything from the bedrooms that you wouldn't find in one.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms tend to become cluttered with personal products. While it isn't necessary to pack these items up, it is crucial that they be put out of sight in cupboards and drawers.

Don't forget the shower stall or bathtub. Buyers will pull back the shower curtain. Would you want to be greeted by pumice stones, shampoo bottles or kids' water toys? Again, think of a posh hotel bathroom and try to imitate that look.

Home Office

The home office is typically one of the most cluttered rooms in the home and also a hot selling feature, so it's important to create an environment that appeals to the target market for the home.

Attack the walls first, taking down awards, diplomas and degrees, and photos.

Clear the desk of mail, work papers and professional journals and magazines.

As you work on depersonalizing each room in the home, don't just throw the items in the boxes. Wrap and pack for the move and then take the boxes to a storage facility.

Don't forget to organize what's left in the room – it puts you one step closer to staging the home.

Now you're ready to sell. Contact The Mary Ellen Vanaken Team of Keller Williams Realty for all your North Atlanta real estate needs (678.929.6529). Our team are experts in the local area of North Fulton and Forsyth Counties and we bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise about buying and selling real estate here. It's not the same everywhere, so you need someone you can trust for up-to-date information. We are eager to serve you. Here are some of the things our team can do for you:

Find Your Next Home:
You need someone who knows this area inside and out! Our team has lived and worked in the North Atlanta area for years. We can work with you to find the right home at the right price for you, including all the neighborhood amenities that matter - not to mention the essential criteria you have for your ideal home.

Sell a Home:
When it's time to move, you need someone who will advertise your home, show to prospective buyers, negotiate the purchase contract, arrange financing, oversee the inspections, handle all necessary paperwork and supervise the closing. Our team can take care of everything you need, from start to close.

Consult on Home Selling Tactics
Oftentimes buyers don't visualize living in your home the way you do. We can make your home attractive to its ideal audience - which can help you get top dollar. Things like staging the home, making repairs or minor improvements, or even simply painting the walls can be the difference between a home resting on the market and one that's sold fast.

How to Depersonalize Your North Atlanta Home for Sale