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Written by The McCarthy's Team on May 18, 2018

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The eagle-eyed of you out there might have spotted McCarthy’s in the press a bit this last week! We were delighted that the Yorkshire Post’s business supplement interviewed our MD Mike about the company celebrating its 50 birthday, and then last week’s property section also carried some advice from us around how to declutter ahead of a Spring move.

We thought it was full of useful hints and tips (we’re not just pretty faces you know…), so we reckoned it might be useful to use a version of it here on the blog.

If you’re looking to make a move this year, and you haven’t done so already, now is the time you should be getting your home ready to put on the market. And while Phil and Kirsty may still insist on location, location, location, they’d also tell you the key to a saleable property is to declutter, declutter, declutter. With more and more ‘stuff’ in our homes, it’s easy for even good-sized rooms to start to look small.

Sellers keen to get the best price for their property are increasingly removing what they can and storing it completely separately. We find we have a flurry of self storage customers at this time of year, linked to planned home moves. People take all the non-essential items out of their home, so they can have the photography taken by the estate agent and do viewings, confident the house is looking its most spacious best. But there’s no point piling it all in a garage or cupboards – potential buyers are bound to take a look there, and it only highlights to them a possible lack of space. So, getting it away from the property altogether makes sense – and of course, with self storage, you know it’s safe and you can get access whenever you need it.

So here are our top tips for clearing out and decluttering a home ahead of putting it on the market:

• One at a time – take on one room or area at a time. You’ll be able to maintain focus in shorter bursts and you’ll feel like you’re achieving something, rather than just creating more mess.
• Everything in its place – Line up three boxes and designate one as items for the bin, one for the charity shop and one for things you want to keep but don’t need day-to-day – and for the latter, they need a safe new home until the sold sign is up. Set aside any items you could sell – it can all help towards the new home budget!
• Winter is not coming – not for a while anyway. Take the chance to clear out all your chunky coats and boots, big winter throws and festive decorations to create a bit of space. Make sure you look at your cloakroom and shoe racks – are they overflowing? Remember, even if you self store them, you can have access at any time, so it’s not that you can’t get them back if a cold spell hits.
• Make a deal with the kids – can you put some of their larger toys, or toys they don’t use regularly, into storage? But promise them they can take a trip every fortnight to swap them, or pick up something they’ve decided they want. Chances are they’ll forget!
• A trial separation – if you’re not sure whether you want to keep something, then pack it away and have a temporary separation. Knowing you can get it back in a few weeks if you need will probably help you decide whether you do really want it.
• Perfect Packing – if you’re storing things, make sure you package them properly. Use strong removals boxes, and bubble wrap for breakables. You will presumably want these things in your new home, so take care of them! Our shops in Wakefield, Harrogate and Leeds can help with everything you might need.
• Keep furniture minimal – Once you’ve had a clear out, look at whether a new cabinet, toybox or chest of drawers might help keep things looking tidy – but don’t be tempted to cram rooms full of extra furniture and storage units rather than having a proper clear out.
• Paperwork – have you still got household bills and bank statements from decades ago? Unless there’s a reason to keep them, get rid. Shredding is the safest way to do this, and if you’ve too much to do manually, we can send out a sack for you to fill. Saves you standing over a shredder which overheats with every other sheet of paper you have to manually feed in!

Hopefully, with your house looking its post-clear out best, you’ll be moving in no time! And we happen to know a pretty good removals firm we’d recommend…