Like almost every other homeowner in your position, you want to sell your Waterloo Region home as quickly as possible while still getting a reasonable price. To this end, you have made all kinds of preparations; hired a great Realtor, made sure that your home is listed in all the right places (including social media) and have undertaken one of the biggest tasks that a homeowner is responsible for during the home selling process; home staging. Which is great, but you so still have to live in your staged home until it’s sold. And that’s where many homeowners come unstuck.
Tired of Swiffering and vacuuming every day? Sick of having to ensure that every dish is washed the second it’s been used or of picking up the kids’ rooms EVERY day? You aren’t alone. We’ll be honest, trying to live in a ‘staged’ home isn’t always easy or fun. We know it can be difficult and stressful. But here are some of the solutions to the problems that go along with waiting for that serious buyer.
Remember That This is Only Temporary
Yes, you’d love a lie in on Saturday morning having left the dishes from the night before in the sink but given that weekends are prime house hunting days for most buyers the chances are that you’ll be getting visitors and yes, maybe sooner than later. This is just one of the things that annoy home sellers. Having to keep towels fluffed, carpets spotless and pets as unobtrusive as possible are a few more common gripes. But if you remember that all of this temporary it can help, and the fact is the better you are at keeping things in order the faster your home is likely to sell, allowing you to get back to ‘normal’.
Embrace the Simplicity
One of the cardinal rules of basic home staging is the need to de-clutter the home as much as possible. and oddly enough once that has been achieved many home sellers find that the new simplicity is really rather wonderful. Some even make a mental note to make sure that they not only don’t let the clutter creep back into the home they are selling but that it won’t be allowed to follow them to their new place either.
Make it a Team Effort
Once all of the major staging work has been finished it’s usually a matter of some pretty basic maintenance in order to keep things in pretty good order. But that maintenance should not just fall to one person, it should be a household team effort. Once your Waterloo Region home for sale has been deep cleaned and de-cluttered, maintenance jobs are doable by the unskilled, (and you note we are not mentioning any age groups or genders here, to be diplomatic).
The easiest thing to do is create a pre-showing rota that assigns tasks to everyone. And we mean everyone, as even a seven-year-old can tear themselves away from their games console to run a vacuum across the floor!