The lot is still 11,000 sq. ft. It doesn't disappear just because a house is covering part of it.

Curtain rods are considered an attachment in my location. Same with blinds. Draperies and curtains are a different story though, and listings will indicate if they convey. Ask your agent what stays in your location.

Take the shelves down. Why ask for an issue by keeping them up?

I am going to take them down. But I don't have a space to store them-they need to be reinstalled in our new place right away. Meaning: the cabinet guy would do it. We talked to him and all. I'm just afraid that by the time he's available to do it, I miss the precious time to list. I have another great cabinet guy in mind, but he won't be available for another month for sure.

If everything goes as planned-shelves go down. I asked for advice just in case things don't go as planned.

I'll ask about curtain rods, thank you!

Here, window treatments convey unless specifically excluded.

Take down your shelves now and repair wall. I'd be pissed if my clients went to close, and there were holes in the wall from removed shelving

Of course the walls are going to be patched and repainted asap. I would never show house with huge holes in the wall, it's disrespectful. Even to the house:)

Here all curtain rods, blinds, and drapes convey unless specially excluded, and typically it's only drapes that get excluded. My first house the sellers removed all the curtain rods and I was pissed. My realtor made them mail them all back (as they had moved out of state).

As others noted the shelves really must come down before you list. Even if you exclude them, I suspect buyers will either assume they are included and it will be an issue, or they will ask them to be included in the sale. I just think it's far more aggravation than it's worth.

If you don't have room to store them, you might consider a short-term rental of a storage space. By the time you get thru de-cluttering prior to listing, you may have lots more for storage!

I would take down everything attached to the house with screws that you do not want to convey: shelves, light fixtures, window treatments, wall mounted TVs, speakers, faceplates, etc. If you would need to patch the wall or ceiling after you remove something take it down now if you plan to take it with you.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Only now I understand why the seller of our new home asked me very nicely whether she can have my permission to take several curtains with her. I was so confused. I told her "Of course! It's your curtains". I didn't understand why she felt she should ask me, at all..

As others have said, I would removed everything that doesn't convey and remove temptation. A number of people I know who sold specified things that did not convey and those were the very things that buyers said they wanted and seemed to use them as bargaining chips.

One woman I know only moved into the house next door, and told me that some of the fixtures that the buyer insisted convey (which my friend the seller wanted to take with her), were removed from the house within a matter of months and replaced with something else. I don't know if the buyer was doing this as a power struggle or whether she knew someone else that wanted them or what. (She looked at the house several times with friends of hers, maybe they wanted them, who knows?)

Also if you have prized furniture handed down for generations it is best to take that out too, just to avoid drama with the buyer who inevitably will want to buy it from you. Whenever I've sold a house I've always had "keep it simple" as a guiding principle. I think good realtors usually feel the same way.

Years ago a friend showed me her kitchen window valance which was from her previous house. She called it "7 months mortgage payments valance".

Right after she put the house on the market, it was sold. Yet the sale fell through because the buyer wanted the kitchen valance, and she refused, It took her 7 months to find another buyer.

Her lesson learned taught me to remove anything we would like to keep before putting our houses on the market.

1. The lot always stays the same. We bought a 9100 square foot lot. Doesn't change whether we put a 2000 square foot house on it, or a 3000 square foot house on it.

2) I have custom shelving in my house. It's not built-ins. The lower parts are free standing credenzas. The upper parts are shelves the cabinetmaker attached to the wall. I'm taking them to our new house.

Realtor strongly advises me to move all the shelving out of the house, before the listing, because buyers might love the shelves and get upset if the shelves are not included, since the shelves are attached to the walls.

Absolutely, she's correct. Shelving if it's attached to the wall would be considered to be conveyed.

In fact take any and everything down that you don't want to leave. I had some hand crafted expensive light fixtures that I removed before putting my house on the market. I replaced them with nice looking, inexpensive fixtures I found in Lowes. I'll use my expensive fixtures in my new build.

Are curtain rods, for example, considered attached as well?

Where I am, both in FL and NY they too convey along with the blinds and drapes usually. When we sold our condo, we had the drapes stay as part of the sale.

What if, for some reason, I don't have time to take the shelves off before the listing? How do I go about it? How can I let buyers know the shelves are excluded, in a way that's clear but very not upsetting? Should I at all, or things like these are discussed later, if somebody puts an offer, and not beforehand?

It can be listed as not conveying in the contract, but it might put you in a pickle later on. For example, someone comes in, loves the shelving and only then realizes it's not included. Better to make the time to remove it beforehand.

Also if you have prized furniture handed down for generations it is best to take that out too, just to avoid drama with the buyer who inevitably will want to buy it from you. Whenever I've sold a house I've always had "keep it simple" as a guiding principle. I think good realtors usually feel the same way.

I just put a completely ridiculous price on the two pieces of furniture I definitely did not want to sell. Like 5 figure ridiculous for two pieces I had designed and my cabinet maker had built for me. LOL. There is no way they would have conveyed but if someone wanted to buy them, I made the price high enough that I probably wouldn't have cried if they had sold.

..another super stupid question. directly related. Do you think it's very stupid to buy different much cheaper curtains instead of a pair of my favorite ones?

I wouldn't be able to do it with all window treatments in the house:) But the dining room one, I happen to have a spare pair; the family room-too many panels, still thinking how to go about it. I actually will need just half of these:)

But the ones I want to try and switch are sold out.

I don't want to take the drapes and the curtain rods out, at least not right away. We'll probably spend another couple months here..curtains help me with my mood, and all..:) And I really want to make it prettier for the buyers too.

I think curtains help.

So I found this pair, on E Bay..pretty cheap, and will work with a room. Stupid or not?

Thank you in advance:)

I would think it would be more trouble to remove flat pieces of wood (your shelves) and repair the walls than to leave them in place and put up new shelves in your new home.

The ideal situation is to remove the items. But, if you don't want to remove something, be sure to include it in the disclosure document as an exclusion. By doing this, you put the potential buyer on notice that the item isn't included. You will see all kinds of things excluded that aren't practical to move without a purchase. Examples would be swing sets, children's play houses, planters, bird baths, pool tables, mirrors, curtains, refrigerators, freezers and washers/dryers. The key is to disclose the exclusion in writing at the time of showing and during contract negotiations.

chisue, these are not flat pieces of wood..that's the whole shebang with credenzas, drawers, open shelving, closed shelving, entertainment piece..I really love them, I didn't leave to look at the houses without taking the measuring tape, to see whether they fit..:) Would cost me around 10 K now to build new ones..which might be not such a bad idea to consider when I was looking at houses two years ago, but I'd say-now it's a bit too late for it:)

Anyway, I followed yours guys, and our realtor's advice, and we were lucky to get hold of our cabinet guy, so the shelving is already in our new place, and the walls where they were are already patched and painted. (And all the other walls are painted and freshened too). Repairs are done as well; so onto more packing, decluttering, tidying up, etc. etc.

We'll probably take our refrigerator (it's nothing to write home about, so I don't think buyers will be sad about it; if they will, we'll leave it), and at least some of the curtains..I guess. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea something movable as curtains needs to be negotiated; but then I never sold yet homes here in US, so I guess new country-new rules..

Thank you so much everybody for your patience and help.

The curtains are a grey area. The curtain rods are affixed to the wall. They stay. The curtains are not. They don't stay. A valence that is screwed to the wall stays. The curtains underneath don't. Bottom line, if you want the curtains, exclude them in the listing disclosure.

Don't assume the refrigerator stays or goes. I've bought and sold homes all over the country. In some markets, the refrigerator stays, in others it goes. Of course, if it's a built-in refrigerator, it stays. Ask your realtor about the local custom. They will know.

Here, the refrigerator goes. Not only we bought this home, and refrigerator went with the previous owners, the realtor also told us the refrigerator goes (if we want it to, of course).

After learning about curtains, I don't assume anything already:)