How self storage can Help Sell Your Home: Home Staging and Decluttering for Success

When selling your house, a quick sale at a great price is most people’s aim. Whether depersonalising or decluttering, self storage can help you organise to achieve these goals and make your home / the house you are selling seem more spacious and appealing.

Spring has sprung, the best time of year to sell your home. And whilst the ‘first time buyer’ end of the market remains relatively buoyant, research published by Zoopla in January showed that high mortgage rates have had a significant effect on affordability in more expensive parts of the country, notably the south of England, including London.

The Market for House Sales

Across the UK, house prices are stagnating and houses are taking longer to sell.  The areas in which we (pink Storage) operate at present are still relatively buoyant, but there is every reason, even in these areas, to present properties at their best.

Manchester has consistently beaten UK averages for property price growth rising by an average of 7% in 2024 expected to continue this year (2025) according to Zoopla, Savills and Rightmove. There’s a shortage of housing in the area. Whilst it seems to be a sellers’ market, with properties on average selling within 90 days of listing, economic uncertainty will doubtless affect the market. Moreover, numerous large regeneration projects are ongoing, offering some very attractive new properties, so sellers must do their best to make their properties saleable to get the best price.

In Wales, whilst prices have increased by 4.1% in the 12 months to February 2025 this has slowed down from January 2025 (government figures). Market prices vary hugely by area and have still not recovered to pre-2022 crash prices. House sales have slowed – it takes an average of 163 days to sell in South Wales - and sellers must work hard to get that sale.

In the Telford area, lower priced properties, those which would usually be seen as first-time buyer properties, make up the majority of sales. Properties take an average of 145 days to sell (more than four months). Although house prices are still slowly rising, it’s not by much and with the current economic certainty, presenting a property well may be the best way to achieve a great price, speedily.

In Birmingham (watch this space for announcements from Pink Storage!), house prices, whilst a bargain compared to other parts of Britain, are rising. Whilst houses are selling a little faster than before (196 days on average), there are 9% more properties on the market than this time last year, meaning competition is heating up. Presenting the property well will help it stand out and obtain the best price for it.

Help Sell your Home: Presenting a Property well

Getting those viewings is all important, so the right price in line with similar properties (the competition for sales) and great photos are the foundation for a sale.

But once you have a viewing, make the most of the opportunity. Home staging isn't deception: it's showing someone how they could use the space for their own lifestyle.

First impressions are everything. Kerb appeal counts, so give your house the best possible chance. Clean windows, make sure doormats are presentable and both doors and window frames are dust and dirt free.

To support a house sale, the main areas to focus on are depersonalising the home so that someone can envisage their own things in the space, and on creating more living space, showing off room sizes to their maximum potential. In a nutshell, decluttering.

Depersonalising the space

Staging a home for sale includes leaving just a few ornaments on show to make a home look lived in and loved, but not leaving anything out that might be a turn off for someone looking at a house. Yes, we all know those things are going with you, but sometimes it’s hard for buyers to see through that. So clean and pack away as many ornaments as possible. It’s a great time to do it before the inevitable last minute panic of a sales deadline. See it as getting ahead of the game!

Pay attention to photographs. This is still your home and if you want out a few photos of loved ones and weddings, great – they’ll create an association with happiness for the potential buyer. However, tables full of photos of family and friends are creating clutter and telling the buyers a lot about you. If they are not like you, they may unconsciously decide that this isn’t the home for them. Carefully pack away any excess.

Pictures on walls are generally not an issue. Buyers may like or dislike, but a picture on a wall is something they consciously know will be going with you. The exceptions to these are nudity and anything representing blood, violence or politics which can be an active turn off to potential buyers. (You may simply love the artistry of a bullfighting poster, for example, but principled animal lovers and/or vegetarians may decide they’ll not spend their money with you.) Replace them with something more neutral and pack them away carefully. (See the Pink Storage guide to packing away pictures and mirrors. )

Similarly fridge magnets create distractions for buyers. These are easily packed safely away to make the space look cleaner and brighter.

Creating more space: decluttering

Decluttering will help you sell AND help you move.

Sooner or later decisions will need to be made about what you do and don’t want to keep and move with. Some of those decisions will depend upon where you’re moving to, and if you already know then you have twice the reason to sell quickly.

Start at the entrance hall. First impressions count, so tidy away any extra coats (heavy winter ones especially). Ensure shoes are on shoe racks or cleared away, and that any bags are hanging or shelved tidily. Your aim is to create a sense of order and good maintenance, You are selling a lifestyle as much as a space.

Children’s toys can be a challenge. They create clutter but you can’t get rid of them completely. And in truth, buyers will know there’s a child living there. It may even be their reason for buying. So make it look manageable. If there are bulky or out of season toys lying around, tidy them away.

Kitchens and bathrooms are the big expenses in a home to change, so ensuring that yours are as tidy and decluttered as possible will ensure that buyers don’t have that expense in mind when they make an offer. Easy wins in bathrooms include hiding away excess, unmatching towels, bulk buy toiletries and toilet rolls. Collections of rubber ducks, anything that’s not needed, can be packed away ready to emerge when you’ve moved. In the kitchen, big gadgets are a good place to start. How many people have pasta makers, spare cafetieres (or ones missing  parts) and rarely used cheese boards/fruit platters? If they’re taking up room and you rarely use them, pack them away.

Other quick wins, storing away personal items, include:

• Packing away excess books on shelves;
• Tidying away makeup and cosmetics
• Storing/hiding away rarely used exercise equipment
• Temporarily remove very large pieces of furniture
• Temporarily remove furniture that’s been kept for purely sentimental reasons;
• Get rid of grubby or threadbare rugs
• Tidy away paperwork

Ironically, clearing things into self storage will help show off what storage space the house does – or could – have. And the positive features of your house , whether that be modern, minimalist living or solid oak floors and cornices, will be easily seen.

Self storage can help declutter and depersonalise

It’s all very well us suggesting that you pack things away, but if you don’t have the space or don’t want simply to move the clutter to, for example, your spare room or garage, the ideal place for these things is in safe, dry self storage.

Renovations as a Sales Tactic

If work needs doing on a property, the sales price you achieve will reflect this. Completing the renovation before selling can sometimes dramatically increase how attractive it is to potential buyers.

Extra space

Building on an extension or conservatory increases the living space of the property and can help a property to stand out from others in the area.

Converting attics, cellars or garages similarly adds space and can add a creative twist to the property. This extra space can also be used to create clearer ‘lifestyle’  areas in a home – for example instead of a desk in a lounge, creating a study, a ‘garden room’ or an extra bedroom.

Beautiful bathrooms

In a survey of over 1,000 UK homeowners and potential buyers, published in House Beautiful, it was revealed that limited bathroom access could affect house prices by thousands. An en-suite would encourage around 94 per cent to offer more on a property, a modernised or recently refurbished bathroom would entice 84 per cent to offer more.  And a third of respondents favour a house with more bathrooms over a house with more bedrooms.

Windows

Having mentioned simply cleaning windows above, buying a property that does not need much improvement is usually appealing for prospective buyers. Whilst upgrading windows can be an expensive exercise, low level glazing, blown glazing and rotting window frames will both ruin kerb appeal and reduce their price offer to reflect both the cost and disruption of fixing the issue. Fixing the problem usually also improves energy efficiency, which in the current climate of expensive UK heating costs, is attractive to buyers.

Colours

Renovations don’t have to be huge. Just a freshen up can make a difference.

Brightly painted facades would stop 38% of buyers from looking at your property (Churchill Home Insurance research), so neutralising it increases your chances of kerb appeal and viewings.

Similarly colours inside the property will affect how viewers see your property. Whilst most buyers will almost certainly plan to change things to their own tastes and colour schemes, neutralising will have a positive effect. It stops the chances of buyers being put off. Although repainting is relatively easy, even buyers who will change the décor will need to live with your colour scheme for a while. They won’t want to, having gone through the stress of moving, live with clashing walls and furniture.

It's hard when a house is still our home, but we have to stop thinking of our home that way and make it easy for buyers to choose to make it their home.

Self-Storage can help when renovating

Self-storage, particularly container storage, makes renovations less stressful by holding tools and materials out of the way when not in use, and keeping furniture and belongings safe from the dust and dirt inevitably created during renovations.

Outdoor spaces

Whether you have a small yard, a garden or acres of land, the outdoor space is often the first thing people see when purchasing a property and an important part of people seeing how they might live in your property, the lifestyle they might have there.

As a minimum, having the garden tidy cleared of clutter will help. It will help give the impression of good, ongoing maintenance and confidence in the property. Simply cleaning stones and repairing broken or crooked slabs makes a vast difference to buyer perceptions. Replace broken plant points and cut back anything that’s gone wild. Make sure any garden furniture is in good repair and presents well.

Whilst the average buyer will be able to see past things that can be moved and/or will leave with the current owner, some decorations are decidedly off putting. Research by Churchill Home Insurance showed that the following are off-putting to buyers: flag poles (38%), garden gnomes (36%), external decorative lights hung year-round (36%), large garden ornaments like statutes (33%) and window stickers (24%).

Take advice from your estate agent and look around at what features other properties on sale locally have (your competition for the sale!) but sometimes adding to the usability and functions of a garden, like a patio or decking, can add value to your property.

If garden furniture isn’t in top condition, would it be better to store it away, leaving more space in the garden?

Self Storage help to present a garden well

De-personalise the garden AND earn a head start on packing to move by cleaning up (and drying off) any unnecessary statues, gnomes, flag poles, etc. and storing them away.

If you don’t like them or aren’t taking them, apps like Next Door, Freecycle, Facebook Market Place can help you find new homes for them. (Or the local waste and recycling centre.)

A self-storage unit will allow to keep hold of the gnomes and statues, of worn out but still usable garden furniture, without them putting off a buyer, and create a sense of space and order in an overcluttered garden.

Probate sales

If your house sale is due to the death of a loved one, sometimes the best strategy is simply to pack everything into storage whilst you sort out probate arrangements.

This offers several advantages. It becomes very easy to deep clean and present a home empty to potential buyers. It delays the need to address the allocation of belongings which can be hard at the best of times, but tensions can emerge whilst emotions are running high. Grief is a difficult emotion to negotiate. And it gives everyone a focus whilst the property goes through probate along with other affairs.

The simple act of packing things away can mean decisions are made about what to keep and what not to keep, and there will be fewer hidden surprises. It becomes clear what is there for probate reasons and in general can help clarify and diffuse a situation.

Protecting valuables

Estate agents do the best they can to ensure that viewers are genuine buyers, but putting away your valuables gives you a head start on packing AND keeps them safe.

Making the Selling Process Easier

You have a great offer on your property, but haven't found your perfect house move.

There is no need to lose your sale.

You can use self storage whilst you take your time to find the perfect place, and, better still, put yourself into a better position as a buyer. By breaking the chain you suddenly become a preferred buyer rather than the one in a nightmare chain.

Pink Storage Self Storage Facilities Make Selling Easier

Self storage offers you a head start on your packing when you are moving house, and, used well, gives you the space to stage your home well for the buyers.

Pink Storage has container storage facilities in numerous locations in England and Wales.

A clean, safe self storage unit can keep your belongings safe whilst you focus on getting the best possible price for your property, quickly, getting you to the next stage of your adventure.