3 Tips to Emotionally Prepare Before Selling Your Home

By: Kelly Vandever

As humans, we don’t have to be hoarders to be attached to our stuff. And a house is no
exception. We’ve all heard the expression, “home is where the heart is”, but what do you do when the time comes to sell your home? Especially when you’ve lived in your home 20 or more years. How do you prepare yourself for that difficult experience? In the real estate world, agents sometimes refer to the buying or selling of a home as a transaction. But to the person selling the home, the sale is so much more than that. In this blog, we’ll be discussing three tips to emotionally prepare yourself before selling your home.

1. Remember your goals

You decided to move for a reason. I’ve had clients where declining health was what lead them to decide to move. They didn’t want to move, but they knew it was the right thing to
do. Remind yourself why you’re moving, and share your why with family, friends, co-workers and of course your real estate agent. Sharing with others will help reinforce for you the ultimate goal of making the move so you can keep that positive goal front of mind when dealing with the challenges and emotions that come during the process.  

 2. Spend your money in the right place

Getting your house ready to sell often means fixing those things you’ve been putting off fixing and looking around your house with fresh eyes to see the wear and tear that you may not even notice when you live in the house. And remember, when you start spending money to get your house ready to sell, you might feel yourself getting a little resentful.  Afterall, you’re putting money into the house, and you are not going to get to enjoy the benefits of those fixes. The things you’re doing to get your house ready will help it sell more quickly, and for potentially more money. Be proud of yourself for being forward thinking and making the investment. 

3. Neutralize your house

When I work with a person selling their home and they’re still living in it, I’ll pay to have a
stager come in for a couple hours to help get the house ready for pictures.  Most of the time, that means packing up of a lot of things that are beautiful and important to you, particularly family pictures and keepsakes. It also will likely mean moving furniture out as well.  It’s not that the real estate agent or the stager doesn’t think you have good taste or that your family isn’t important.  It’s that we’re trying to help your house appeal to the largest number of buyers. We want the people looking at the house to fall in love with the house, not your adorable grandson. One way to deal with this emotional upheaval is to remember you’re moving and going to pack up these things anyway. And if packing it away now means more people fall in love with your house, then that will help you sell faster and for more money. 

Don’t be overwhelmed
Let’s get real, it takes a lot of work to get ready to sell a house. Whether it’s the fixing, the
packing, the sorting, the trips to the dump, the phone calls with family, or the information your real estate agent needs to list your house, it can be a lot. Don’t forget to ask for help and start making lists of things to accomplish. I hope you found these three tips to emotionally prepare to sell your home helpful and be sure reach out if you need help along the way.