When it comes time to sell your home part of the key to helping the process go smoothly is emotionally detaching yourself from your house. It is the best way to keep yourself objective for the entire process; from when you decide on a selling price, through to negotiating the sale of your property.
Integral to the process is that you need to stop thinking of your house as a ‘home’ and start thinking of it as a piece of property – a product that is meant to be sold. Unfortunately, this is not always easy for sellers. Why? It may be that they really don’t want to sell their home but need to for one of a variety of reasons; a necessity to move, or perhaps because they’ve outgrown the house they’re in, or just the need to downsize. Whatever the reason – emotionally detaching from your home is key. Here are some tips for emotionally detaching yourself when it comes time to sell your property.
Sellers Corner: Emotionally detaching yourself from your home
- Start packing. Why leave it to last-minute! Packing some of the personal stuff early on will help you to start looking forward to somewhere new to put it. It will also help to remind you that your selling the house not your stuff or your memories! Pack up the photographs, diplomas, trophies, kids’ artwork, souvenirs, and knickknacks. With these things out-of-the-way, it’s also easier for buyers to imagine themselves living in the space and you’ll get a start on the moving process!
- Redecorate. Not for you this time, but for potential buyers. In fact when your property is on the market, its decor should appeal to buyers not to you! You want to attract the largest number of interested buyers as possible so think neutral and subdued. The bonus is that not only will you be presenting an environment that buyers can envision their personal items in, you will also (most likely) be making it look less like your home and (again) give you a reason to look forward to your new home.
- Hire a pro! If number 2 seems out of your reach or leaves you confused and anxious, hire a professional home stager. My team and I supply a stager to our clients and have found that they really help clients who are confused with how to get their properties market ready.
- Live like a buyer might come through at any moment. You can help to shift your attitude about your home by changing up your routines. While on the market make some rooms off-limits, clean the bathroom daily, vacuum the rugs before leaving the house every morning or even empty the trash cans every day. Changing your routine will change the way you feel about your property.
- Understand how your home compares to others. Supplying clients with comparable sales is a must when it comes time to list a property. Understand the current sales of properties in your neighbourhood with similar characteristics (ie. number of bathrooms, bedrooms, square footage, parking, lot size, type of house, etc.). Seeing this type of breakdown will help you to understand the value of your home based on specific features rather than from your own emotional experience with it.