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Neat Houses Sell FASTER and for MORE MONEY:
The BEST
and WORST places for Sellers To Hide Things From Buyers!
Your
house is on the market, and you're a motivated owner. Translation: you REALLY
want to sell. Because you have instructed your Realtor to “Show me the Buyers”
you are getting a ton of showings. Prospective homeowners arrive on your
doorstep with a moment’s notice.
In addition, you are driving your family
crazy. You have decreed: "No dishes in the sink, no crumbs on the kitchen
counter, no dirty clothes on the floor! No one will eat, drink, sleep, or brush
the dog again until this house is sold!"
Take a deep breath, sit down,
and relax. While it IS true that ‘You don’t get a second chance at a first
impression’, most buyers ARE human and realize that Sellers have to live,
too.
Just for the fun if it … and because it might actually come in handy
one day … here are the FIVE places buyers are LEAST likely to look when viewing
a house for the first time. Therefore, these are the best last minute hiding
places:
- Under the bed. You probably didn’t need to be told about this hiding place,
and you may have trouble squeezing any more ‘stuff’ under there. What makes this
an ideal place is that it is big, and usually centrally located in the room.
Therefore, clothes, toys, shoes…whatever… can be flung from all directions with
a good chance of finding their mark. Any last minute items can usually be kicked
under the bed.
- In the washer & dryer. Buyers rarely, if ever, open a washer or dryer.
These make them ideal last-minute hideaways for toys, books, and boots, as well
as dirty clothes. When utilizing this hiding place, it is a VERY good idea to
tell the rest of the family. You never can tell when someone will get ambitious
and turn on the dryer, or start to fill the washer.
- Trunk of your car. This, at first glance, might seem a little drastic. But,
if the Realtor is pulling into the driveway, and you are standing with two paper
bags filled with household items, the trunk could come in very handy!
- Refrigerator. Again, while this might appear far-fetched, buyers will NOT
open your refrigerator. This makes it an ideal place for the last minute
stashing of anything that won’t suffer from being a little cold!
- Behind the sofa. Another old standby that could already be seeing some
‘active duty’, the sofa usually has a wall behind.
The other
side of this issue deals with those areas buyers are MOST likely to inspect
during a house tour. Try not to use any of these locations for your last minute
secret hiding places.
- Oven. Do not store your pots and pans in the oven. This makes it appear as
if you are short on kitchen space. If possible, the oven should be totally
empty, and, of course, clean.
- Bedroom closets. One of the things buyers tend to remember about the houses
they see, and to either comment favorably or unfavorably upon, are the closets.
Avoid cramming the bedroom closets with extras; the more space that shows in
your closets, the better.
- Kitchen drawers. The same buyers, who would not dream of opening your
refrigerator, will think nothing of pulling out a drawer. Try to keep kitchen
drawers as uncluttered as possible. If need be, utilize bedroom drawers for all
the kitchen utensils and junk you have to put someplace.
- Laundry room. A nice, neat laundry room is often a pleasant surprise in a
home, and something that buyers tend to remember.
- Kitchen pantry. Like the laundry room, the kitchen pantry is often the
‘dumping ground’ for all kinds of odds and ends. The less cluttered the pantry
is, the bigger it looks, and the more buyers will remember it,
favorably.
As you can probably tell, the secret to ‘hide &
don’t seek' is to keep those places that are USUALLY used for storage as clear
as possible. This gives the buyer the distinct impression that he/she will have
plenty of room for all the stuff they need to put somewhere. In order to do
this; you may need to move your items to unusual places that are not normally of
concern to a buyer.
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