Live in Your Home While You Try to Sell It: Clean and Clutter-Free Sells

Showing your house for sale before you've moved out can be a real hassle, and depending on how you present your home could make or break a sale. If you cannot move out and clear out your house, take care about the way it looks when people come to see it. I'll never forget one house we considered buying--well, we considered it until we stepped inside. The house was dark, cluttered, and messy. Closets and drawers overflowing, bathroom scattered with toiletries, and about five people wandering around staring at us while we looked through the house. The carpets were stained, the house smelled, and the house just gave off a feeling of being ugly and uncared for. We beat it out of there and never even considered buying it after that. The state of the house made us feel uncomfortable, and with so much stuff filling every corner, we simply couldn't visualize our own things there.

The first thing you absolutely must do before showing your house is to declutter. Be severe. You might as well; It'll mean fewer moving boxes when you move. But for the moment, an uncluttered look will be more appealing to prospective buyers. Towering stacks of paper are ugly. Closet shelves overflowing with your kids school projects and the Christmas decorations are scary. Bathrooms with two dozen half-empty bottles of toiletries and a hair-filled brush are entirely unappealing. So file, throw away, or put in storage anything that doesn't absolutely have to be out in view during a showing. One efficient way to do this is to go through each room with a garbage bag and a large laundry basket. Anything that isn't already in it's place can be put either in the garbage bag to be disposed of, or into the basket for temporary storage. Once you have put everything in one or the other, throw out the garbage and set about putting the other things back in their places (books on bookshelves, socks in drawers) or finding new places for them.

After your house is less chaotic and cluttered, the next step is to tidy it up. Cleaning comes later, but first get everything looking orderly. If furniture is out of place, put it back. Open the curtains. Put clean dishes away. Stack dirty dishes in the sink. Hang up towels. Put away toys. Shelve books. Neatly stack essential papers on your desk. You get the idea. You should also be careful not to simply throw things into closets or cupboards. Buyers shouldn't be opening your clothing drawers as a general rule (unless they're built in), but they will want to peer into closets and check out cupboard space. Make sure things are neatly folded and carefully put away, not jammed in messily.

Once your home is tidy, the prospect of cleaning will be much less overwhelming. You don't need to do a heavy-duty, deep clean to make your house presentable. But you do need to make sure it doesn't stink of cat litter or have cobwebs hanging in every corner. If you're not sure what to focus on, get a friend to stop by and tell you what dirt is the most obvious. But in general, there are a few essentials to pay attention to. Your kitchen needs to be spotless. Wipe down everything, scrub the sink, get all the gunk off the stove-top, and mop the floor. Kitchen lighting is generally bright and prospective buyers aren't going to get good feelings about the house if they see three-day old drips on the counter, dirt in the corners, and a stray piece of squashed pasta on the stovetop. The same applies to bathrooms. Clean them well. Windex the mirror and the fixtures to make them sparkle. Wipe the baseboards and pay special attention to the corners. Make sure there are no water stains or crusted gunk anywhere in sight, and scrub the tub thoroughly. A gross bathroom just gives people the willies and your prospective buyers may end up spending their tour through the house thinking unkind thoughts about your hygiene rather than paying attention to all the great aspects of the house you're trying to sell. Other than those two important areas of the house, the rest is relatively easy. Give visible surfaces a quick dusting, go through the house and wipe off any finger or forehead prints from windows, and make sure the floors are not sticky or visibly dirty. If you have uncarpeted floors, after you have swept, you can do a "spot mop" very easily. Combine some cleanser with water in a spray bottle, dampen the floors, and then use two damp rags and "skate" on the floors to pick up dirt and grime.

If you have a basement, attic, or garage, make sure these areas are tidy enough to be easily traversed. You can follow the decluttering and tidying routine in these areas as well, but nobody expects waxed garage floors, so don't bother. Just make sure that prospective buyers can move easily and won't trip on a toolbox or last year's school projects.

Finally, a quick note about décor. Neutral décor is known to be best for home selling because it allows prospective buyers to easily visualize their own style in the house, rather than being distracted by your style. Not too many buyers want bright red bedrooms or deep purple game-rooms, and if you happen to run into one who likes those colors, he will probably want them in different rooms anyways. You don't have to give up your style completely, or strip the house to bare walls and windows. Just try to find a way to make sure it has a neutral, toned-down look without a lot of visual distractions.

If you keep your home from becoming cluttered, and keep it reasonably tidy, you should be able to have it ready to show with an hours notice. For a finishing touch, throw something yummy (frozen cookie dough, a turkey, cinnamon and orange peels in a pan of water) into the oven or light a candle so that prospective buyers are greeted with smells that say "Home!" rather than "Incontinent lap-dog in the vicinity!".