Tips for a Quick Pick Up for Home Showings
Selling Your House Now? Here are some tips on how to pick up quick for home showings.
When your house is for sale, naturally you’re anxious for potential buyers to come take a look and make an offer.
Since it usually takes more than one showing to get that offer, it becomes quite a pain, since you need to pick up your bills,
dirty laundry, dinner dishes and other things that find their way your floors, tables, and counter tops.
Add in having kids in your house while it’s for sale, it can make it an even bigger challenge as you add flip flops, sunscreen, beach towels (clean or dirty), toys, snack dishes, sun glasses, etc… to things you have to pick up.
Here are a few secrets for when you have very little notice that people are coming:
Creative hiding places-
Find a couch or chair that has some room underneath to temporarily store items that should be put away. Things like toys and school books are perfect for kicking under the couch for the few minutes the buyers will be scrutinizing your living room or family room.
If you have things spread all over the kitchen, throwing them in the dishwasher can be a great temporary hiding place for the kids’ snacks, the afternoon mail and the dirty dishes, too. Your oven is another great emergency storage place for dirty towels and tennis shoes that didn’t make their way to the closet or the laundry room in time for the showing.
Emergency storage bins are great! Keeping a large box or two (Rubbermaid) in your garage can come in handy when you need to make a clean sweep of your house. Gather up everything that is not a part of your staging design and pop it into a box in the garage.
An extra trash can will also come in handy. Gather up all of your stuff and throw it in the clean, unused can just while the buyers are looking around. They’ll never look inside, so your secret will be quite safe. And your house will look wonderful.
Drawers and cabinets: Consider clearing out several drawers or cabinets in the kitchen just for the quick clean up. You’re moving, remember? Why not pack up the good china, most of the pots and pans and clean out that junk drawer so you can just scoop the evidence of actually living in your staged-to-perfection home into these temporary storage spaces? That way, you’ll always remember where you put flip flops, sunscreen, beach towels (clean or dirty), toys, snack dishes, sun glasses, etc…
If you have to use one of the creative hiding places, just remember to unload the trash can, the oven, the dishwasher and the box in the garage right after the buyers have gone.
You don’t want to cook your tennis shoes or steam wash the sun screen. Or suddenly remember that accidentally the clean, unused trash can (this great hiding space) was put at the curb as you retrieve it from the curb just after the trash truck drives away.
Happy Showings!