Hey there, if you're selling soon, and you're looking around your place and you're like, "I have a lot of crap. I have a lot of stuff. What am I going to do?" That is a great question. You know what? You're not alone. Nine out of 10 times, I go to a listing appointment and most of the people have too much stuff. The running joke is that a staged home is a home not lived in. So when we're positioning a house to sell, we're trying a less is more approach. We want to have the places look as big as possible, creating space. We want to have them look awesome where it's staged and we're set up for success. But that typically means you're not set up to live. So when you're going to sell, decluttering is one of the absolutely number one things that pretty much we tell everybody.

There was a movie years ago where the actress, she's looking in the mirror and she spins around real quick. And she's like, "The first thing I see in the mirror, I take off." Well, it's kind of the same thing, right? When you look around, if you have three china cabinets and a dining room table and eight chairs, well maybe if we have four chairs and one china cabinet or no china cabinet and one table? Maybe take the leaf out. Can we have a little bit less? So people can go through, stroll through your house, walk through and get a good feel.

They're not sitting down watching the Super Bowl. They just want to come through and check out your house. So decluttering is number one at the top of your list. So what do you do? Well, number one is can you get rid of stuff? Number two, can you sell stuff? Number three, do you have a friend or family member that maybe you can put some of your stuff in their basement or their garage? Can you get a pod or some kind of storage thing where you can put it in there? Now people ask us all the time, "Does it look bad if I just shove all my stuff in one room or the garage or a pod?" Short answer, it doesn't look great, but it's better than just being in the house.

So if you have to choose, if you don't, you're like, "Hey, I don't have money to actually go put stuff in another storage area." Then yeah, if you want to fill the garage, go for it. Again, not as awesome as just having it out of the house completely, but better than having it all spread around. Same thing. If you have an extra room in the basement or something, if you want to stack it all up and pile it up in one storage room, okay. It's still better than having it spread out.

And lastly, a little tip. If you're going to put it in something like a pod, that's going to sit in front of your house, let us or your agent, whoever you use, come get a good front picture first. We don't want to have your main front picture of your home with a big pod thing right in your driveway. It just doesn't look awesome. So let's get a great picture first, then fill up the thing. If the pod's still there, people get it. They know you're selling. They know you're moving. So some stuff's in the pod. It's not the end of the world. All right. I hope that makes sense. Take a look around and then get rid of 40% of what you have. That's my advice. I hope it helps. I am Brendan Spear with Caprika Realty, and I wish you the best in your home selling journey.

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