While your home is listed for sale, there may be occasions when you receive a call that a prospective buyer is coming to see your home.  Don’t let that overwhelming feeling of panic set in, follow these easy pick-up tips to get your house in show-time shape in minutes.

The Game Plan

- Assign responsibility for tidying up.  When you have a last minute showing, each person knows which room to straighten.

- Have a get-away planned.  Know where you will go when you have to vacate the house for a showing.  Consider a short walk, park, playground or to visit friends.  Run errands, do your grocery shopping or pick up the dry cleaning.

Entire House Strategies

- Eliminate any stray crumbs or dirt on the floors.

- Turn on the lights, even on sunny days, rooms show better when they are brightly lit.

- Open the curtains and blinds to let in as much natural light and exposure to views as possible.

Kitchen Clean-Ups

- A lot of prospective buyers house hunt on their way home from work, or dinnertime.  Wash all dishes to avoid unsightly dirty dishes and speed up clean time. Keep kitchen worktops, sink clean and clutter free.
- If you are caught with dinner on the table, place it into the refrigerator and re-heat it when the buyers have gone.

- Prepare flesh flowers if you can and your home will have a warm, inviting smell.

- Wipe out cooking spills with a quick squirt of grease cutting cleaner and rub with a kitchen or paper towel .  This will add sparkle and shine.

Laundry Disguises

- Put dirty clothes away until you have time to launder them and the same goes for clean clothes that you haven’t had time to put away, let them sit in a closed cupboard instead of a messy pile.

- If you have more laundry than you know what to do with, drop it in a basket, fold two large bath towels and place them on top.  Laundry goes from messy to neat.

Hidden Storage

- Utilise under-the-bed storage boxes for last minute pick-ups of toys, books and the occasional dirty socks.

- Keep a small box of pertinent items stashed in a handy location such as the cupboard.  Use the box to keep keys, wallets, and shoes, anything you need to locate quickly when others are leaving to let you show the house.
Final Check

Run through the house room by room, from top to bottom, to make sure everything is in shape.  These are just a few simple things that you can do that will make a positive impression on prospective buyers.

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