Preparing Your Home for Sale: A Pre-Sale Clean Up Checklist

Most buyers see your home online before they ever see it in person. That means the listing photos are really the first inspection, and anything that looks cluttered, overgrown or tired shows up straight away. This checklist covers the jobs that make the biggest visual difference before photos and open inspections, working from the street in.

Start with the timeline

Ask your agent for the photography date and work backwards from it. A rough plan:

• 3–4 weeks out: decluttering, selling and donating, booking any trades
• 2 weeks out: garage, shed and yard clean-up, rubbish removal, small repairs
• 1 week out: garden beds, mulch, final tidy-up
• The day before photos: final sweep, bins out of sight, cars off the driveway

If you’re running out of time, prioritise what shows in photos: the front of the house, the main living area, the kitchen and the backyard.

Outside: street appeal

The front of the house is the hero shot on most listings.

• Mow and edge the lawn and pull weeds from paths and cracks.
• Trim hedges and shrubs away from windows, paths and the front door.
• Weed and mulch garden beds. Fresh mulch is one of the cheapest ways to make a garden look cared for.
• Clean or touch up the front door, letterbox and house numbers.
• Clear the driveway and verge — no trailers, old cars or rubbish piles.
• Hide the bins.

Outside: the backyard and side paths

Buyers want to picture themselves using the yard.

• Clear green waste — prunings, piles of leaves and overgrown corners. (Our green waste guide covers the options.)
• Remove junk from behind the shed and down the side paths.
• Take down or remove broken structures — a rotting cubby, a rusted tank or a collapsing lean-to. See light demolition.
• Clean outdoor entertaining areas and set up a simple outdoor setting.
• Fix loose fence palings and sticking gates.

The garage and shed

A packed garage tells buyers the house doesn’t have enough storage. An empty, swept one says the opposite.

• Clear out everything you don’t need before the move — you’ll have to do it eventually anyway.
• Take paint, chemicals and gas bottles to a free household chemical drop-off (see our paint and chemical disposal guide).
• Sweep it out and leave only neat, boxed items.

A garage and shed clean-out usually takes just a few hours.

Inside: declutter every room

Less stuff makes rooms look bigger and lets buyers focus on the house, not your belongings.

Living areas

• Remove extra furniture so there’s a clear path through each room.
• Clear coffee tables, shelves and the top of the TV unit.
• Take down most personal photos and kids’ artwork.

Kitchen

• Clear the benchtops — leave one or two items at most.
• Tidy the pantry and cupboards (buyers do open them).
• Clean the oven, rangehood and splashback.

Bedrooms

• Make beds with plain, fresh linen.
• Clear bedside tables and the floor.
• Thin out wardrobes so they look roomy.

Bathrooms and laundry

• Put away toiletries and cleaning products.
• Replace tired towels and shower curtains.
• Clean grout and fix any mould.

Anything that’s leaving the house — old furniture, a spare mattress, boxes of junk — is best gone before photos, not stored in the garage. Our moving house declutter checklist has more on sorting what stays and goes.

Small fixes buyers notice

Small defects make buyers wonder what else hasn’t been looked after. Before inspections:

• Dripping taps and running toilets
• Loose handles, hinges and towel rails
• Doors that stick or don’t latch
• Blown light globes
• Damaged flyscreens
• Holes or marks on walls — patch and touch up
• Cracked or missing tiles

If a fix needs a licensed trade — electrical work, for example — book them early.

Before each open inspection

• Mow if the lawn has grown since photos.
• Sweep paths and the front porch.
• Clear the benches, put away dishes and empty the bins.
• Open blinds and turn on lights.
• Put away pet bowls, toys and beds.

Common pre-sale mistakes

• Stuffing everything into the garage. Buyers open the garage. A garage full of boxes from the house is as off-putting as a cluttered living room.
• Leaving the yard until last. Gardens take time to look good — mulch settles, lawns need a mow or two after weeding. Start outside early.
• Overcapitalising. A big renovation rarely makes sense right before a sale. Focus on clean, clear, tidy and working. Your agent can tell you what’s worth doing for your market.
• Forgetting the side paths and behind the shed. Buyers walk the whole block at an open inspection.
• Booking everything for the last week. Trades and removal services get busy, especially in spring, when lots of homes go to market.

Selling a rental or deceased estate?

If the property is vacant, it’s even more important to get rid of leftover furniture and junk and keep the yard maintained between inspections. We can clear the property and then come back for regular garden upkeep until settlement. See our guide to deceased estate clean-outs if that applies to you.

One team for the whole list

Rubbish removal, garden tidy-ups, mulching, shed clear-outs and small repairs are usually separate trades. We do all of them across the north-east as part of our pre-sale property clean ups, and we can work to your agent’s photography date. One customer who used us for green waste removal wrote:

“Very much appreciated the service from North-Eastern Property Solutions with some green waste removal. Friendly, and easy to communicate with. Will be using their services in the future.” — Alanah S., Google review

Get ready for photos

Tell us your photography date and send a few photos of the property, and we’ll come back with an upfront price and a plan to get it done in time. We work across suburbs like Golden Grove, Surrey Downs, Mawson Lakes and Gulfview Heights — see all our areas we service.