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Original poster

Putting our messy house on the market

75 replies

reallyneedmoresleep · 07/04/2021 08:58

Aarrggghhhh! We are a family of 6 and we are about to try to sell our house. After a week of frantic tidying and shoving stuff in the loft & garage the estate agent’s came round, gave us our valuations and suggested we “tidy up a bit”.
What can we do? We have to live here. I have bags in the car ready to go to the charity shops as soon as they reopen. Any miracle tips?

OP posts:
Lovelydovey · 07/04/2021 09:40

Take photos and look at them - often easier to spot clutter than if you live in it.

SnarkyBag · 07/04/2021 09:42

@weareallpassengers

Don't buy more storage. The answer to clutter is less storage. more storage and you will just get more clutter. take the opportunity to de clutter and don't take it to the new house
Totally agree. Now is a great time to get rid of all the excess stuff rather than taking it with you. Free cycle, Facebook just give it away or take it to the tip. If you’ve been frantically shoving things in the loft and garage and the estate agent is still saying tidy up you have too much stuff!
JorisBonson · 07/04/2021 09:44

Get ruthless and bin stuff. If it's not been used in 6 months, bin it. Go to.your new house with less crap.

SleepingStandingUp · 07/04/2021 09:45

Wecollectclothes.co.uk will collect from doorstep - clothes, toys, books etc.

SleepingStandingUp · 07/04/2021 09:46

Also storage will allow you to sort twice. So box it up and bin whatever you don't need and put into storage. Then as you take it out of storage REbox and get rid of anything you've not missed or needed between now and the move.

Maireas · 07/04/2021 09:48

In all honesty, I wouldn't worry about it. We saw a couple of houses that were very cluttered, but we were buying for the school catchment area, so it made no difference. We could see beyond all their stuff to think about how it would suit us.

minisoksmakehardwork · 07/04/2021 10:16

Do they mean tidy up as in clutter or tidy up as in marks etc on the walls?

If you haven't got the same colour paint, magnolia the room - check to see if you have a scrapstore/paint recycling centre near you as you can pick up paint very cheaply there.

If you need everything in your home, I would honestly go for the storage unit rental option. Box up stuff you are not using on a daily basis and store it. Before you move into your new home, go through everything in storage and be brutal - it really helped our family of 6 when we moved house and wanted to get rid of lots of junk.

Get the kids, if they are old enough, to declutter any broken toys, damaged books, things they are too old/no longer want. Anything good enough to sell either list on FB or Ebay, or if you don't want the hassle, drop into a charity shop. even one bag out every time you go shopping is better than nothing.

People aren't going to be bothered about things stored in a garage or loft - chances are they won't look in the latter when viewing. But they do want to imagine themselves in the house. Although you have a large family and I know this puts additional pressure on available space, people won't necessarily think 'a family of 6 lives here and we are only 2/3/4'. They will see a home with potentially little space for growth.

Nats1984 · 07/04/2021 10:20

I personally think people are a bit daft if they Vito a property because it’s untidy or even unclean or badly decorated. If it’s the right area and size and you can afford it surely that’s what you do and on moving day it’ll be empty! I’m just about to move into something that’s not been decorated since the sixties, has conduit running over all the ceilings and is very dirty. But that’s what cleaners and painters are for! I’d never be able to get a property with a huge garden and drive in such a lovely area in my wildest dreams if I looked for something ‘finished’ and ‘Instagram ready’. Yes they need to be able to see the rooms and layout and it needs to be clean and smell fresh. Other than that I’d chill out a bit.

TakeYourFinalPosition · 07/04/2021 10:24

Oh man; we had this last month 🙈

I thought our one-bed flat, which is now also our office, was as tidy as it's ever been.... the EA thought otherwise and suggested we tidied up.

I personally think people are a bit daft if they Vito a property because it’s untidy or even unclean or badly decorated. If it’s the right area and size and you can afford it surely that’s what you do and on moving day it’ll be empty!

DH was adamant that this is true; and people will buy based on the place, not what you've got in it... but we didn't get much traction, so we did a MASSIVE declutter, and moved loads of stuff out for photos, and the stats speak for themselves, sadly.

Maybe just because of the amount of competition right now? Who knows.

myusernamewastakenbyme · 07/04/2021 10:53

Ive just sold my house...i was ruthless with decluttering....did loads of tip runs before i went on the market...got rid of stuff ive been dragging onto for 20 years...house feels lovely and will be so much easier on moving day.

hopeishere · 07/04/2021 10:53

Can you post some photos?

Also look at some photos of houses for sale to see how absolutely clutter free they look. It's not normal but lots of tat or personal items will put people off.

BluebellsGreenbells · 07/04/2021 10:58

This is your most expensive asset. It needs to be shown at its best.

Some people won’t care, but they are rare.
Of your house isn’t spotless people will wonder what you haven’t noticed or repaired.

The lady who said ‘that’s what decorators are for’ clearly can afford decorators on top of a house purchase.

Personally if I was moving with young kids, the time it takes to redecorate and install new bathrooms etc isn’t worth the hassle and time lost doing more exciting things.

Bluntness100 · 07/04/2021 11:02

Agents usually don’t comment unless it’s really bad, so, I’m sorry to say, so you need to act on it. They have seen all sorts.

Clear out everything you can and send to the tip where possible. There are generally external bins for clothing that goes to charity you can drop off at too.

Clear it all out, store in the car and garage what you must keep and give it a good clean.

Badoukas · 07/04/2021 11:49

Badly presented = low offers. Worth putting your heart and soul into making it look as good as possible I say.

PeggyHill · 07/04/2021 11:51

How ever much stuff you've bagged up to get rid of - double it. Triple it, if possible. You can probably get rid of way more stuff than you already have.

LolaSmiles · 07/04/2021 11:52

Don't buy more storage. The answer to clutter is less storage. more storage and you will just get more clutter. take the opportunity to de clutter and don't take it to the new house
Having done the more storage and cart it all to the next house, I totally agree with this.
Storage doesn't solve the clutter problem, it just hides it.

The exception I'd say is in the bathroom, as a cheap bathroom cupboard can store most toiletries to keep it looking neat. Otherwise get rid of things.

Maireas · 07/04/2021 12:23

@Nats1984

I personally think people are a bit daft if they Vito a property because it’s untidy or even unclean or badly decorated. If it’s the right area and size and you can afford it surely that’s what you do and on moving day it’ll be empty! I’m just about to move into something that’s not been decorated since the sixties, has conduit running over all the ceilings and is very dirty. But that’s what cleaners and painters are for! I’d never be able to get a property with a huge garden and drive in such a lovely area in my wildest dreams if I looked for something ‘finished’ and ‘Instagram ready’. Yes they need to be able to see the rooms and layout and it needs to be clean and smell fresh. Other than that I’d chill out a bit.
I agree. Your point about instagramable is a good one.
lissie123 · 07/04/2021 12:26

We haves house during the first lockdown and as the tip and charity shops were closed we hired a large skip. Anything truly suited for recycling we kept in our cars for taking to the charity shops or tip when they reopened. We filled the skip and boy was it worth every penny!

lissie123 · 07/04/2021 12:27

Moved house!

Bluntness100 · 07/04/2021 12:28

I personally think people are a bit daft if they Vito a property because it’s untidy or even unclean or badly decorated

That’s a really simplistic view. To simplistic. Simply the better a propert is presented the higher the offers, the worse, the lower. Untidy and unclean can mean people struggle to see the actual property. I saw one that was stomach churning, the smell of cat piss made it difficult to concentrate with tears streaming down my face. If I’d loved it I’d have still made an offer but it would have been a low ball.

Badly decorated you need to account for the time and money to redecorate.

It’s not quite as easy as saying don’t discount it. It’s more about the offer you’d get if you don’t fix it. And of course there is a mid ground between insta worthy and dirty /messy. You know, that mid point called clean and tidy,,,,😃

KeyboardWorriers · 07/04/2021 12:31

Are you the kind of person who finds it hard to see how to tidy?
I have a cleaner more to tidy than to clean as I struggle with this (I have dyspraxia).
I paid her to spend a day tidying before our photos were taken and our house was totally transformed. It's still weird looking at the photos of it from that time! (It sold on the first day of viewings)

Ikora · 07/04/2021 12:44

Clutter makes spaces look smaller it’s as simple as that.

A house the same as ours a couple of doors down has come up for sale. To say it is a show home in the photos is an understatement. I know my house isn’t especially cluttered but after looking at those photos I went on a mini rampage. DH querying where is the toaster? sums it up.

Maireas · 07/04/2021 12:47

"Where's the toaster"!! Brilliant Grin

randomsabreuse · 07/04/2021 12:47

If you're trying to sell a house as spacious it helps to feel like there is enough storage for stuff - so things in odd places feels like storage is crap - it was.

Our old house had had a loft conversion so storage wasn't great although we had improved it we used cars and went hard on decluttering to help the photos.

We put some stuff in storage as we relocated and moved into a smaller rental blind. Mostly for stuff like a second double bed, extra wardrobe which we would need in our long term house as rentals are way more expensive per month than a mortgage. We got a 3 months for the price of 1 deal and when it became apparent that buying wasn't going to be super easy (and that the rental had a huge loft with proper shelving) we decided we'd just rebuy anything we could not store in the house for far less than the cost of storage.

Storage definitely needs discipline and a definite end date - I'd say 1 month after completion

Wtfdoipick · 07/04/2021 12:56

I'm currently househunting and clutter puts me off. I know the stuff won't be there but to my mind if you can't find the effort to have the place spik and span for viewings or photographs how much do you skip on basic maintenance. To me it makes a place look unloved and uncared for.