Stuart Zullo 
Now be honest. Hoarding is something rarely discussed at parties, yet many of us have seemingly innate hoarding tendencies. It’s also something you don’t necessarily know you’re doing until you can no longer fit your car in your garage for the piles of junk (sorry, make that ‘useful items you may need one day’). Many of us are shamefully in possession of a junk draw/junk cupboard/junk room/or in the most extreme cases, junk-filled house. There is of course a nicer way of putting it, especially in the real estate world… you need to de-clutter!
Oh yes, we’ve all heard the expression before. You must de-clutter if you’re thinking of selling, make sure you de-clutter for the inspections, don’t take photos of the house until you’ve de-cluttered, and so on. But why do we do this? Why is it so important to de-clutter your home when preparing it for sale? After all, the chances are you’re still going to be living in the house while it’s on the market. Is it so wrong to leave it as is until you find a buyer, then begin moving all your belongings out? After all, it’s going to be a lengthy ordeal – Do we really need to suffer through that before we even have a buyer?
The answer is ABSOLUTELY! I recently saw an episode of Selling Houses Australia in which the host likened selling your home to going fishing. You need to reel the buyers in.
It’s essential that once you’ve committed to selling your Liverpool home, the first thing you do is begin to clear out all the (for want of a better word) ‘stuff’ that’s cluttering it up. While the workload may seem immense when you look around and the task ahead, so will the reward be at the end. We all know a home is only worth what a buyer is willing to pay, and this can depend on many things – current market conditions, interest rates and the quality and price of other available comparable properties are just a few. But one of the biggest influences we see if how much of an emotional connection a buyer makes to a property.
Most buyers will be looking for a bargain and hoping to pay less than the value of the home. Then there are those who think the house is a good fit for them, but aren’t willing to pay more than what they believe to be fair market value. And then there are the ‘heart’ buyers. These are the buyers who walk through a home and fall in love with it – not just the walls, floors and ceiling, but the lifestyle it represents. These buyers want your house, and your house alone, no other will do. THESE are the buyers we want to reel in!
So put yourself in the shoes of a keen buyer. If you were looking through Liverpool houses in your price range and came across two with identical features, yet one was cluttered up with the owner’s (for want of a better word) ‘stuff’, while the other was open, spacious, neat and tidy, which do you think would draw you in? Which would make you visualise a more relaxing care-free lifestyle? And at the end of the day, which would you want to spend the next 20 years in?