5 items to eliminate from your home before showing it

Before your first showing, you should purge the home of unnecessary items and eliminate personal touches to encourage interested home buyers to make an offer.

Before your first showing, you should purge the home of unnecessary items and eliminate personal touches to encourage interested home buyers to make an offer. In addition, set aside some time to eliminate these five items from your home.

• Family photos are important moments in your life meant for display, but there's no place for them once your house is on the market.
• Potential buyers do not want to see reminders of the current owners throughout the house. Instead, they want to see the home as their own.
• Eliminate personal photos from walls, shelves, nightstands and refrigerators before putting your house on the market.

• Likewise, other personal memorabilia should be taken down from your walls. Your kids' sports trophies, your medals from those 5Ks and half-marathons or certificates of achievement from work should be removed.
• While these items have special meaning to you, they only remind your potential buyers of you, which distracts them from seeing the home as theirs.

• Some potential buyers will be turned off by pets. A litter box, food bowls on the kitchen floor or dog toys strewn throughout the backyard will leave these buyers with a negative impression of the home.
• They might be concerned about damage, odours or fur in the home as well.
• Eliminating pet-related items allow you to erase another distraction from potential buyers' minds.

• Everyone has laundry, but you don't want interested buyers to see it littered around the house.
• Make sure you're caught up on your laundry — or at least do a good job of hiding it — during showings.
• A laundry room full of clothes, clean or dirty, takes away from the space, leaving it feeling small and cluttered.
• Make your laundry room appears larger, cleaner and more useful by putting away the clothes.

• Clutter distracts from your home's beauty. Remember that potential buyers will explore every area of your home.
• Empty that junk drawer in the kitchen that someone might open. Replace piles of clutter in closets with well-organized baskets and bins, which maximize space.
• Remember that clutter can make your home seem smaller than it actually is.

Successful home showings are essential for you to sell your home. Ensuring that your home is clean and free of clutter and other personal touches will help create a space that impresses potential buyers.