Homes & Land of Winnipeg

Gearing up for the Spring Market

After the long months of winter, many of us are ready to take advantage of Hot Spring Market!  But how do we get our home ready for sale so that our home can generate those multiple offers $10,000; $20,000; $30,000+ over list price?  Home Stagers are professionals trained to get your homes looking their best! Well be sharing suggestions and tips to help get your home those top dollar offers!

Storage Space is Key!

One of the biggest mistakes people make is waiting until after their home is sold to organize their belongings.  Another mistake is throwing everything into a closet, spare room, or basement storage area when getting their home ready for an open house or showing.  What they dont realize is they are leaving thousands of dollars on the table that the seller may have paid if they had cleared out these storage areas before they listed it! Statistics say Buyers are willing to pay more for a home with an abundance of well organized storage space.

When buyers inspect your closets and storage areas, they want to see how much space there is for their belongings.  If toys, clothes & sporting equipment come spilling out at them – red flags go up!  Translation – No Storage !  Lets go look at the NEXT house on the list!

Lets make your house stand out!

We recommend sellers go through their home room by room, paying special attention to closets, cupboards, drawers and storage areas. Keep only what they will use in the next 3 months, pack up the rest.  Move the boxes neatly into storage.  Tip: Its a great idea to have a pen and labels handy to price items for garage sale while sorting

If you have a large enough garage, you could get away with stacking packing boxes neatly in a corner.  If you are short on space, there are a number of companies offering portable storage containers for rental.  They bring the container to you, you fill it up, and they pick it up and place it in a secure storage facility!  Average cost $150 - $300/month depending on the storage locker size and company. With buyers willing to pay more for well organized storage space, the potential added value to the buyer can easily go into the thousands of dollars in offering price. Great return on investment!

Sort Items into 5 Categories:

1. Garage/Moving Sale – items that still have some value but you do not need, use, or have duplicates of
2. Donations – anything of value, not sold in moving sale
3. Garbage – broken, mismatched, unused, etc - JUNK
4. 2^nd Hand Stores/e-Bay/ Kijiji – better items others will purchase second hand (furniture, small appliances, etc)
5. Pack for Move – wont need now but keep for new home

Well Organized Closets

Now that youve gotten your closets cleaned out, make them look great!  Invest in some inexpensive closet organizers, $50 - $200 for most closets.  They are easily installed by a home owner or handyman in less than a day.  Closet organizers allow you to place more stuff into the same space, thus giving the appearance of an expanded storage capacity in the same closet!  Very appealing to a potential buyer! Youll have transformed the unappealing cluttered closet into a huge selling feature and will easily re-coup the cost with higher offers!

Well Organized Cupboards & Drawers

Kitchens and Bathrooms are often overlooked storage spaces that have a huge impact.  Anything that is fixed to your home, is fair game for buyers inspections!  Home owners should go through kitchen cabinets, drawers, bathroom vanities, linen closets with the same rules – keep only what you will need for the next few months, everything else should be packed away and placed in storage.  Tip: While sorting ensure drawers and cabinets open and close easily and are not in need of repair!  Buyers remember required repairs and will discount their offer price if repairs are needed by thousands of dollars!!

Storage Rooms

Whether this is your spare bedroom or a utility room in the basement, it needs to be sorted and cleaned.  If your spare bedroom has become your storage space, clean out all the stuff and use this room to set up another bedroom or a Home Office.  Tip: With so many people working from home, a spacious Home Office has become a huge selling feature.  However, if you only have one or two bedrooms, a third bedroom is very appealing to a growing family!

Make sure people can get in and look around your furnace room.  Ill never forget one house that was packed solid floor to ceiling in the utility room.  Problem was that anyone wanting to look at the mechanicals of the house couldnt even get close to the panel, furnace or HWT!  Did you hear that slam? There go your potential buyers walking out your front door and down the street to the next listing! 

Garages & Sheds

These areas also need de-cluttering.  Once you clear out the excess, invest in some rubber storage bins for sporting goods, tools, things you will use in next few months.  Invest in some bike hooks to stow bicycles neatly off walls, and use storage space below the bikes for the bins. Youve doubled your storage capacity!  The easier it is for buyers to see their possessions in your home, the closer they are to writing that top dollar offer!  

Time for the Moving Sale

You have put in a lot work and you now have a much more appealing house!  You will reap the rewards in how quickly your home sells!  Statistics tell us that you will get a higher selling price than if your home was still full of all that stuff. If you find, at any time, you are over whelmed by the task or you do not have the time, you can always call a Home Staging Company who can come in and do the sorting, packing, and organizing for you.  If you have a listing or open house deadline to meet, its our job to ensure your Home looks its absolute best by deadline! 

Until next month, Happy Organizing!

* for details on any quoted statistics, please visit my website at www.maximumimpactplus.com for details on these and other ideas for selling your home faster & for a higher selling price.