I would love to put my home on the market. I don’t know where to start with getting rid of stuff. The thought of organizing my own tag sale, getting rid of outdated furniture, etc… is a bit overwhelming.
Has anyone hired outside help to get started with all this? Was it worth it? Any other advice about how to get started with preparing a home to sell? It’s been 16 years since I last did it, and we were in an entirely different situation since then.
I would start with a local real estate agent, just for an overview. They can help with recommendations of stagers, estate sale companies, and can also let you know what may need to be updated. They help people downsize or sell family homes all the time plus they have a list of local companies in your area that have been vetted on some level. You are not obligated to sign a listing agreement with them on the spot but they will have a finger on the pulse of what is going on in your community.
When we get ready to sell, we will do these things in this order.
Ask our kids if they want anything and tell them to take it immediately.
GET A DUMPSTER. I won’t have any trouble tossing a lot of stuff into a dumpster.
Donate anything we don’t intend to keep to a charity thrift store.
Decide what we absolutely want to keep…and get rid of everything else. Freecycle, Facebook market place, asking friends…any way to just get it out.
THEN I would call an agent to see what of my remaining treasures should be left in the house and which need to be removed. The removed stuff would be packed up and put in a POD or storage unit.
I staged my own house last time we sold and we had offers very quickly…so I would start there.
Thanks folks.
I’m keen to hear from anyone who has used a professional organizer. I want someone to hold my hand and give me some guidance on how to best approach home selling.
If you can (afford) to do it, I would make the goal not SELLING unneeded items but getting them out of your possession - either through offering to family, friends, neighborhood FB pages, thrift stores, etc. You will get bogged down with the process of the selling process for each item.
We hope to make a move (in town) before long. This weekend I went through the house room by room and made a list of repairs/fixes/updates I think are needed to get ready to sell. H doesn’t understand that people want a home in good shape at purchase and this is going to take a lot of time to convince him of this process (if you have a spouse is your spouse on board with selling?).
I’m going to make a chart with divided by rooms and list the following:
Fix/repair
$ system - one $ = cheap fix $$$ = expensive fix
Color code as to which we can do and which we can hire out
If H doesn’t pack and leave over this (
) we will then call in a realtor who has worked with family members for their opinion. She may see things we don’t or say “don’t bother with that repair/fix”. I’m hoping this is motivating to us.
This is just a starting plan. I NEED a plan. H doesn’t like a plan cause that means work. LOL.
All of this doesn’t include an outside professional. Perhaps you could interview a outside organizer or two to see how you “fit” with them and get an idea of what they offer.
I’ll add that our answers - or your questions/answers may depend on what you are selling. We have all levels of home ownership here on CC.
Are you selling a 4000 sq ft in great condition house and it’s just your stuff you are worried about?
Or do you have a 1800 sq ft ranch that is 60 years old and in need of updates?
We hired a woman who has a business helping seniors who are moving out of their longtime homes when we sold my parents ’ house. She was a godsend. She liased with the movers to get the things my parents still wanted, and then held a giant tag sale with the rest. She took care of getting rid of the things that didn’t sell, and then left the house clean and empty. We would have then listed the house, but the market is so hot that the house sold without ever being listed. In the end my parents netted $1,000 but we got the entire contents dealt with. If we paid her it might have cost $5,000 because it was many many many hours of work, including getting minor repairs done.
For my parents, we are engaging a company that will do EVERYTHING. They sort, organize, flag items they think are of sentimental value, and then sell. They bring in display tables, figure out traffic paths, everything. They also get rid of everything that is not sold. They get 40% of the proceeds. My sister and I are thrilled we don’t have to do anything. Last year, when we thought my dad had only weeks left and my mom would move into an assisted living facility, we each took things we wanted. The company came out and did an initial assessment. We are on their list now, so we can tell them when we’re ready for them to sell everything.
We also hired a one stop shop for my parents’ house when they downsized to FL. The company came highly recommended. It wasn’t cheap. It was 50% of the sale of the contents plus shipping costs to get what they wanted to keep to FL and to other family members who wanted items.
They did great clearing out the house - combination of estate sale and donation which they handled.
In retrospect, we should have had a separate mover handle the moving. They broke a ton of stuff and didn’t pack anywhere close to as well as a professional mover would have. We had insurance but of course some of the items were irreplaceable.
Interesting about the mover. We moved from overseas 16 years ago and the company my husband worked for arranged and paid for it all, which is why I’m so clueless.
Looks like my first port of call should be the realtor. Thanks all.
Two friends did a clean out of houses. The folks they hired came in and gave them a flat fee for the contents the friends didn’t want plus a drop dead date for making sure the house was empty.
In the first case, the owners were asked to remove what they wanted before the sales folks came in.
In the second case, the owners just had to label every single item they wanted left (they packed things into boxes and labeled…and then labeled everything else they wanted.
In both cases, they netted about $3000…but they didn’t have to get rid of anything themselves. Both families had some nice pieces of older furniture and some artwork.
We had to tag what we wanted to keep too. If we had to do it over, we would have insisted on taking out what we wanted but my dad didn’t want to do that. As a result, a bunch of stuff got accidentally left behind.
I agree on asking the realtor for recommendations. They’ll know who to use and who to avoid.
Yes. In Austin, at least, everyone we talked to recommended the same estate sale company. They book months in advance.
Yes to getting a professional organizer/estate sale company involved. Many estate sale companies are weeks to months to book in advance. Try to use an organizer to help with doing a first pass if you want to get started, while waiting for an estate sale company to take over.
Get anything you want to keep and give to other family members/friends/charity out sooner rather than later. Yes to professional movers, which may not be who the estate company uses.
Ask your organizer/estate sale person to freecycle as much as possible.
This comment is not meant to offend, but there is a lot of “rent a dumpster!” talk that sometimes is premature. There are still people that are willing to take items for free out there. Especially in these times. However, those people that can do so are oftentimes not able to get a truck and people to load on short notice. A successful pick up can take a bit of time. But, getting things taken away for free (craigslist, freecycle, buy nothing groups on social media, church charities, community resource groups) is eco-friendly, and you never know who can use your old stuff. Obviously, this does not mean smelly, moldy, seriously damaged items.
Many of the estate sale companies here do all the work, then have people come in to buy the remaining contents of a home for pennies on the dollar. They then sell at swap meets or what have you. So that’s how many estate sale companies get all items out. Let them pay you, and save the cost of a dumpster. Most companies do complete work.
Good luck!
Great tips everyone. I had no idea estate sale companies book far in advance.
This last move was our 5th in the last 14 years, but our first without relo; oh how I missed those packages 
We moved to our retirement place last year; our previous move included an organizer in the package. It was a godsend. I went ahead and used the services as if we were downsizing to our final stop. I did a walk-through with DD first to see what she would want when she moves out. Of course she wanted the piano; why do they always want the piano? The organizer came through, helped sort and tag donations and told me which local charity could benefit the most from each item. If she thought I could easily sell something on FB marketplace, she let me know what to list it for and brought it down to the garage. She itemized and packed everything and took to each charity and brought back the receipts. There is no way I could’ve physically done what she did. It took her about 2 days after an initial walk through, 3 trailer loads, and she charged relo about $500-$750 (can’t remember exactly). I would happily pay much more than that!! I need to do the same for my parents. We only had 30 years worth of stuff; they have 55+.
Yes, companies do sometimes book far in advance. Especially as we head into spring cleaning. But as mentioned, there is work that you can get done beforehand. In fact, it’s recommended.
Try to minimize the arguments between family members about who gets what and sort that out as equitably as possible beforehand. If there are key items (portraits, silver, furniture) that more than one family member wants, consider getting appraisers involved and decide how to distribute equitably. But also try to avoid arguments! (As me how I know…)
Do what you can before the estate sale company comes in. There are horror stories of arguments between family members that cost inheritors money because they insisted on fighting instead of mediation over an estate.
Perhaps read up on how to do this with the least static possible, so you can move forward in confidence. Forewarned is forearmed.
A quick word on staging- don’t assume that the lowest bidder is the best value. The town I live in is “hot” right now, so nobody is paying for staging- folks are bidding on houses in poor condition, swamp in the backyard, or whatever. But the market had been soft for a few years and I have enough friends and neighbors to go through the process to learn about the staging folks.
Your realtor may want to stage the house. That’s fine. It will involve getting rid of family photos, clearing books off the shelves, and buying new hand towels for the powder room. If your house is in generally good condition, doesn’t look like a time capsule from 1970, and you do a good job of cleaning out closets and getting rid of knicknacks and curio cabinets- this is fine, and won’t cost you much.
If your house is in a hard to sell neighborhood, or there’s tons of inventory, OR you are looking for a price which is above the market, it might be worth paying for professional stager. These range from folks with generic “good taste”- who will get rid of some of your furniture, bring in rented, plus clear off all your surfaces and put an expensive kettle on your cooktop, to “the full Monty”- over a three or four day period, they’ll make your house look like a Restoration Hardware catalogue (or Ralph Lauren, or whatever the style or aesthetic of your architecture happens to be) and will repaint over hard to sell colors, bring in entire suites of furniture, artwork, accessories, throw pillows etc which they keep in their own warehouses (plus some rentals to fill in).
This is expensive- but can be worth it. A friend of mine had a bidding war on a house which the realtor said “get ready for a long winter”. The stager she hired said “The people who can afford your house aspire to this lifestyle”- and then made it happen!
But get a sense of the market from a few realtors who have sold houses in your neighborhood first. You may be able to get away with the “grand clean out” and a fresh doormat!!!
I’m one who will get a dumpster. Our neighbors on both sides moved to Arizona and downsized considerably. They both said it was amazing how much actual trash they had in their house. With kids, they had lots of saved paper things they didn’t need, games with missing pieces, puzzles with missing pieces, other things with missing parts or pieces. Broken things like Christmas lights and ornaments. Old magazines. Just garbage they had been meaning to get rid of over the years but just didn’t. And they both filled the dumpsters.
We have a big enough house. We try to get rid of things, but we have a bunch of dressers, desks, shelves, under bed boxes…you know, holding stuff we just don’t need and will never move.
Come to think of it…maybe I’ll get a dumpster next summer and get a head start.
I’ve already cleaned out and gotten rid of old linens and clothes. And shoes and some purses. I need to work on reducing things like artwork, glassware, etc.
After I clean out and my kids take whatever they want…then I would think about a liquidator.
We made one error I wanted to mention. We went through our folks’ stuff and took a bunch of stuff, like the old NordicTrack ski machine, to Goodwill. The company told us we should have kept EVERYTHING, because it’s amazing what people will buy. So don’t give stuff away prematurely.