Getting ready for the market

What it really takes to prepare your home for sale

By Ginny Gassman
NH Mirror Contributor

Our real estate agent looked at the wallpaper and said, “Well, it’s not offensive.”

We had asked her to come take a look and let us know how we should get ready to sell our 30-year-old house.

(Courtesy Photos) Use cable ties or rubber bands to keep individual cables neat in storage. A jumble of power, computer, audio, video and telephone cables became neatly stored in organized boxes in the basement.

We knew we had some maintenance to do. In this buyers’ market, we’d have a hard time selling, she said, if the house was not the best it could be. Currently, offers were coming in at tens of thousands of dollars lower than the asking price.

I knew we had to get in gear. First, we had to consider our “curb appeal.” The yard was overgrown and a holly bush was all but blocking the front entrance.

But when I looked at the holly bush, I saw robins feasting on the berries. In summer, the bush is home to cardinals.

It was hard, but we called our handyman and planned a spring pruning project.

Next we considered our stuff. Our agent’s advice was to get most of our personal things out of the house. Buyers would want to be able to picture their own books on the shelves and their own knickknacks on the mantel.

There was a difference of opinion among my friends about whether the house should be as impersonal as a hotel or homey but uncluttered. Having spent too much time in hotels over the years, we opted for the latter.

We started in the basement, where, according to the agent, it would be acceptable to have neatly stacked bins and boxes, as well as items stored on shelves along the walls.

In my experience, having an organized basement is the key to an organized house. When you have a spare shelf or two in the basement, and places mapped out for the types of things that will be stored (permanently or temporarily), everything is easier on the upper floors.

We’d already started a “yard sale pile” on the ping pong table. We’d collected boxes for packing.

Anticipating our move, we’d been purging the basement of things since the summer, old computer equipment, books and notebooks, plastic flower pots, canning jars, curtains left by the previous owners. We’d even organized a shelf of bins to house all of my husband’s wires and connectors.

Now was the time to pack the personal items that our buyers would not want to see. Emphasizing the little things that create the most visual confusion, we cleared magazines off the coffee tables, jewelry off the bureau, DVDs, CDs and videos out of the living room, our mail station out of the kitchen, the candlesticks and pitcher off the dining room sideboard, the basket of toys in the guest room, the projects off our desks.

There’s a point where a room becomes barren rather than uncluttered. I want our place to be inviting and warm.
With our “For Sale” date looming, I’m pondering how much more to remove. My kitchen canisters, a plant or two, a few of my watercolors may stay.

As spring approaches, my house has become impersonal even to me, so perhaps our plan is working. Once the snow clears, we’ll tackle the holly bush and say a last good-bye to the robins and cardinals.

Our real estate agent says, “Every house sells, eventually.”

Soon we’ll know if we’ve done enough to make that happen.

Ginny Gassman is an occasional contributor to the NH Mirror and the owner of Tidy Cove, a professional organizing business in the Lakes Region.