Vancouver’s Open House

Are you thinking of selling your home?

Do you need to downsize before you show your property to potential buyers? Getting your home in order can be a huge task, the best thing to do is break it down into small manageable steps. Decide what you need to take with you and what can be enjoyed by someone else.

One of the simplest ways to help with the daunting task of down sizing is to start early. If you have been talking for a while about selling your home, and have decided that this is the year, then start lightening your load early. Go through each room of the house and decide what furniture is going to be moving with you, and what furniture is moving (tossed) out early. There are many options for your old furniture, clothes, computers & electronics.

1) The garbage. If you think that your old couch has had it, and no one would enjoy using it, don’t be afraid to dispose of it. Just make sure you do you and everyone else a favour and drop it off at the dump for proper disposal. Don’t try and fool yourself and think that dumping it an alley will be helping someone. No one is going to want an old couch after it has been basking in the juices of an East Van back lane.

2) If you want to have someone come and cart it off for FREE, try placing an add on an online classified. There are numerous places to post FREE adds for FREE stuff. Be honest with what you are giving away, if it needs TLC then let people know. Remember if you want people to come to your home, you have to be comfortable with allowing strangers know where you live. A good rule is to NOT give out any personal information, such as phone number or home address, unless you get the other person’s contact info first. In other words if someone is calling from a private or blocked number, simply ask them to call you back from an unblocked number, or ask them for their number and call them back before giving out info.

3) If you have the transportation, there are many not for profit organizations that will be happy to take any old furniture, clothes, books & houseware items. Remember to donate quality goods. No one will want an armchair that had been chewed up by a dog, and covered in cat hair.

A garage sale is a good idea, but remember most people bring their “change purse” with them. You will get more money for your item if you place an add in a laundry mat or in a classified.

If you have computer and electronic items there are a number of recycling places that will be happy to take any old monitors, mice, keyboards, electronics, etc. Do a quick Google search “Vancouver computer recycling” and a number of places come up. If you don’t want to drive all the way there, a number of shopping malls have drop off points. This will save you gas and time.

Remember you are not alone. Their are many great services that help people get their homes in order. Getting decluttered takes time, but in the end it helps enrich your life, even if you are not deciding on selling a home. Get it done. Take out one box a week, in a year you will have removed 52 boxes. Every time you leave your bedroom, take a piece of clutter (paper, old pen, wrapper, dirty dish) out with you. Get rid of it properly, sink, garbage, recycling. Get things clean one piece at a time!

Tags: down size, real estate, recycle