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The context of these questions is for an out of state move but could apply to others selling their home.
Pre-sale storage: When it comes to putting your house up for sale, I’ve been reading advice to purge what you can but also to rent a storage unit or get a POD Get a storage unit or get a POD and put everything you won’t need in it while your house on market: pack away anything not needed for the showing of your house, make home look roomy, empty what you can from closets. Pack as if you have one month left in the house. I understand the logic, but what happens after you sell the house - do I pay again to have the POD brought back to the house again so I can load it up with remainder of my items? Or, if you use a storage unit, do you then rent a truck again to get all those items out of storage, bring them back to the house so your full-service moving company can pack them away (if you are using full-service movers). Seems like a lot of excess moving and costs, but did anyone do that to make house more presentable for sale?
Post-sale storage: we are moving cross country and will need to put items in storage for a while once there. For this reason alone, does it seem to make sense to use a freight option that can go right into one of their storage facilities verses using a full-service mover who will then need to unload into a storage facility of my choice ?
I've known people to do what you described, OP. I think it depends on how much money/time they have, plus whether that will really make a difference in their market.
I've known others who said, "Phooey! We don't believe in staging the house, other than minor repairs and a deep cleaning." Their homes sold just fine, but I should note that they were in a "desirable location" (good schools, etc).
And on the other side, I know several families who did elaborate staging, but either it took two years (and significant price cuts) to sell their house, or in one case, it's been four years and the house is still on the market (and they rented it out to cousins). In that case, the area is economically depressed with flat home sales.
I did not "stage" when I moved. I was in the process of emptying the house, so it was half empty. Mine sold in several days because it was a hot market and the house was priced correctly. My realtor was getting a kick-back from recommending a certain woman to do staging, but I told her politely to go pound sand. She was very new to the business and shocked that my house sold so fast. Idiot. Post-script: she's moved on to owning a coffee shop.
Added: I packed my stuff into ReloCubes and had them shipped to Des Moines. They had to sit for 3 weeks until I could close on my new house. I would do that again. I hauled the "must have" (inflatable bed, folding chairs, TV tables) stuff in the car with me so I could get my bedroom and home office up and running immediately.
I've known people to do what you described, OP. I think it depends on how much money/time they have, plus whether that will really make a difference in their market.
I've known others who said, "Phooey! We don't believe in staging the house, other than minor repairs and a deep cleaning." Their homes sold just fine, but I should note that they were in a "desirable location" (good schools, etc).
And on the other side, I know several families who did elaborate staging, but either it took two years (and significant price cuts) to sell their house, or in one case, it's been four years and the house is still on the market (and they rented it out to cousins). In that case, the area is economically depressed with flat home sales.
I did not "stage" when I moved. I was in the process of emptying the house, so it was half empty. Mine sold in several days because it was a hot market and the house was priced correctly. My realtor was getting a kick-back from recommending a certain woman to do staging, but I told her politely to go pound sand. She was very new to the business and shocked that my house sold so fast. Idiot. Post-script: she's moved on to owning a coffee shop.
Added: I packed my stuff into ReloCubes and had them shipped to Des Moines. They had to sit for 3 weeks until I could close on my new house. I would do that again. I hauled the "must have" (inflatable bed, folding chairs, TV tables) stuff in the car with me so I could get my bedroom and home office up and running immediately.
Thanks, your reply help put things in perspective. Yes, this really relates to staging, and I don't think we need it. We are in Southern California, hot market, good schools, house only seven years old and well-maintained and decorated. We should be able to shove any personal items in closets. I don't see the benefit of moving anything into a storage facility just for showing the house. Again, out home is very presentable and, like you, a few of the bedrooms will be empty when it comes to listing it. Given the market, I still see no need to stage the empty rooms. If anything, I'll take photos of the rooms before we sell off the furniture in them.
The context of these questions is for an out of state move but could apply to others selling their home.
Pre-sale storage: When it comes to putting your house up for sale, I’ve been reading advice to purge what you can but also to rent a storage unit or get a POD Get a storage unit or get a POD and put everything you won’t need in it while your house on market: pack away anything not needed for the showing of your house, make home look roomy, empty what you can from closets. Pack as if you have one month left in the house. I understand the logic, but what happens after you sell the house - do I pay again to have the POD brought back to the house again so I can load it up with remainder of my items? Or, if you use a storage unit, do you then rent a truck again to get all those items out of storage, bring them back to the house so your full-service moving company can pack them away (if you are using full-service movers). Seems like a lot of excess moving and costs, but did anyone do that to make house more presentable for sale?
Post-sale storage: we are moving cross country and will need to put items in storage for a while once there. For this reason alone, does it seem to make sense to use a freight option that can go right into one of their storage facilities verses using a full-service mover who will then need to unload into a storage facility of my choice ?
Thanks
It all depends on time and finances.
We moved 8 years ago to another state. We rented a storage unit near our house, and slowly filled it with things we wouldn't need for the next few months, but wanted to keep, to de-clutter the house for sale. We didn't need a moving truck - we just filled up our van every day or so with boxes and dropped them off at the storage place.
After the house sold, we decided to wait 2 months before moving, since we didn't want to move in the middle of summer (the house sold quicker than we anticipated, and we were moving to Texas). So we stayed with my MIL, and moved all of our stuff into a workshop she has on her property.
When we moved, we loaded a moving truck and drove to Texas. We rented a storage unit before we got there, and moved everything into it on the day we arrived. We were staying in a hotel for a month while we looked for a rental property.
After a month, we moved some things into our rental, but it was very tiny, and we knew we'd be buying within a year. So most of our stuff stayed in storage.
A year later, we bought a house and moved everything there.
That's five moves in a year. We did all the moving ourselves. Never want to do that again. LOL
We are going to move most of it out of the house. I think the new buyers are a lot more interested in how quickly they can get possession of the place, than they are in seeing your furniture in it. I see a lot of really cluttered houses on Zillow and wonder how serious they are about selling it.We have bought several storage trunks that we are going to use for the move and they are filling in for some of our furniture. (The wardrobe and dresser are going on sale in tomorrow's garage sale.) I'd like to have it to where we can be out of here a week after it sells.
With our first house we were moving because we needed more space so we did rent a storage unit. One weekend we rented a moving van and loaded the storage space up with the things we wouldn't need so the closets and cabinets etc. looked more spacious. When we sold and were moving out we had the moving company stop at the storage facility first and load that stuff on the truck. They then came and loaded the house. It was a bit more expensive, but it was worth it for us to have the closets cleared out, etc. as the house sold to the first person that looked at it. The market wasn't particularly robust and about 20 other houses were for sale in just our neighborhood at that time.
A lot depends upon how much stuff you have in the house. The first step is to go through everything and ask do I want to pay to move this? Do I really use it? If it is old is it better to get rid of it and buy a new one at the location instead of paying to move it? If I can put it into storage for two months and not miss it, do I really need it?
You might find that just purging gets you down to a more reasonable level of stuff.
Some houses are so jammed that they really are going to show better if the possessions are thinned out.
Also, I purge again as soon as I have a place to move to. I ask myself, where will this go in the new house? That gets rid of some more stuff.
Moving is expensive. Get the amount of stuff to be moved reduced to cut the cost.
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