Guest Blogger: How to Remove Junk Before Selling your Home

Entry #1178, May 15, 2012

No matter how hard you try, you never seem able to stop accumulating excess amounts of very special possessions. As the adage implies, it all may be a treasure to you, but junk to others. What happens to this “junk” after months and years of accumulation. Most of it is clustered  and scattered in the basement, the garage and even in the attic. Out of sight, out of mind, so it is until you are faced with the reality of the situation. Ultimately the answer lies in junk removal.

Here is a common scenario. You decide to put your home on the market and move to another location. Your realtor, after evaluating the property, tells you that unless you dispose of your junk, your home will never sell. With the motivation in place, where do you start?

Advice for getting rid of junk before you sell your home

Image via: Bodie and Fou

Realtor Advice

Any competent realtor will tell you that a house full of clutter is very difficult to sell. Potential buyers like to imagine the house filled with their possessions, not yours. An empty basement has more appeal than a cluttered one. A garage full of junk is a turn off. These less junk, the better the curb appeal of your home. Lots of junk results in fewer and lower offers.

Getting Started

This is the most difficult part of junk removal. It seems to be an overwhelming task that takes its toll  in our emotional and physical state of mind. The easiest and most efficient way to bid adios to your treasures is to hire out the job to a professional service that deals with junk removal everyday.

Here are some steps you can take to begin the process:

• Assemble junk from all locations into one central location, the garage.
• Invite family and friends to carry off anything they feel a need to own
• If deciding if something is junk or a treasure is difficult for you, have a third party decide.
• Abide by that decision or your junk pile will grow before you start disposing of it.

Remove items that are no longer needed

Image via: Ammonition.Tumblr

Find a Reliable Junk Removal Company

The rest of the job should come easy for you. You have made the commitment to restore order into your life and make your home more appealing to a potential buyer. The company you hire will take care of the rest. A good company will strive to have your possessions recycled productively.

Some of it may be donated to charitable causes to help underprivileged. That could include furniture, clothing and housewares that are in good shape. Other articles made of metal can be turned over to a recycler that will crush and melt it down to be reused in the manufacturing process. Wood and paper can be shredded and used as mulch or fuel.

In the end, everyone wins. Your junk is gone. Your home is ready for the market, and the items that have been donated or recycled are back in use. Good work.

Paul Shrivner is a freelance writer from Toronto, who has written about topics such as real estate solutions (like this one).

For more home buying & selling tips on Stagetecture, click here.