Decluttering Your Listings and Business Practices

Unless you’ve been living under a rock—or a pile of clothes from the eighties—you’ve noticed decluttering gospel is everywhere. You can thank (or blame) home organizing superstar and best-selling author Marie Kondo, whose Netflix reality show, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” preaches that people can improve their lives by getting rid of all the things they own that don’t “spark joy.”

Naturally, some folks find the decluttering craze annoying, but real estate practitioners know the value of reducing clutter, especially when selling a house. “A lot of home buyers simply can’t see through a cluttered home,” says Nancy Newquist-Nolan, SRES, with Coldwell Banker in Santa Barbara, Calif., who specializes in helping people downsize. “They just can’t visualize themselves living in a seller’s house if it’s a total mess.”

Getting your own surroundings in shape is just as important as staging your listings. “Clutter in our homes can affect us in surprising ways,” says Libby Sander, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Bond University in Australia. Having too much clutter can harm our ability to focus, disrupt sleep, and increase anxiety levels.

READ MORE