There are a lot of stressors in everyday life. Add the chore of moving on top of it all, and it can feel like your fragile house of cards is liable to collapse at any moment. In addition to managing your own home buying process, you have to keep the house you’re leaving squeaky clean for its next set of buyers!
When you’re focused on making space for your next journey, it can be jarring to stop and prepare your current place for a showing—especially for a big event like our Twilight Open Houses. But if we’ve learned anything from Marie Kondo, the popular Japanese organizing consultant, it’s that tidying up can be taken in stages. And that it can be both fun and rewarding in the end!
Let’s apply the Konmari method as you tidy up your home for a Twilight Open House or other surprise showing. Are you ready to get started?
Lesson 1: Clothing
Let’s start by assuming that you’ve already pared down your belongings to only those that spark joy before listing your home on the market. Now, you just have to keep your home neat and tidy for prospective buyers. Be ready to shift into gear ahead of your Twilight Open House.
Clothing (and other “laundry” items) should be the first thing you tackle. Pick up stray socks, clothes, and jackets from the floor, door hangers, or the back of chairs. Make sure your entryway is neat, with the bare minimum of shoes and coats on display. Put all remaining shoes in their place. Then go through the kitchen and bathrooms to grab dirty dish towels, bath towels, and other items in need of laundering. Make sure clean hand towels are on display in case they’re needed.
Lesson 2: Books
Neatly arrange any books or magazines you have out. If you’re reading something bawdy or political, you may wish to shelve it until the showing is done. While you’re at it, straighten up loose DVDs, video games, board games, and other media items you have around the house. Make sure kitchen cookbooks or bathroom readers are also neatly placed where they are not in the way.
Lesson 3: Paper
Putting away papers is doubly important as you tidy up for your Twilight Open House. On the one hand, clear tabletops and counters give the illusion of more space in your home. But even more importantly, it can protect your safety and privacy. Make sure bills, insurance documents, and even personal correspondence are tucked away. This is also a great opportunity to toss last week’s magazines, newspapers, and circulars into the recycling bin. Expired 20% off coupons do not spark joy.
Lesson 4: Komono
Philip K. Dick invented the term “kipple” for the useless little items around your house that seem to multiply while you’re not looking. Marie Kondo calls the “everything else” komono. Now’s the time to do a thorough sweep for kipple in the kitchen, bathrooms, and garage. Stray twist ties, gum wrappers, dirty dishes, school items, action figures…. If you don’t have time to put them in their proper place as you go, designate a “house showing” bin to toss them into while you make your sweep. But don’t forget to tidy them up properly as soon as possible—You definitely don’t want the whole bin to multiply!
Lesson 5: Sentimental items
You may have already taken down family photos before you listed your home. If you still have some around, we recommend grabbing them on your way out before the prospective buyers arrive. In fact, many sellers have a box of all kinds of sentimental and personal items that they remove from the home during showings. Items in the box can include jewelry, portable family heirlooms, and medications. It’s unlikely that anything would go missing while you’re away, but it’s a tidy way to keep all your most valuable items close at hand.
About Twilight Open House events
Open houses have been and remain an important part of the home selling process. According to the “2025 NAR Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends” report, open houses are one of the top three most important sources of information that buyers use in their home search. 49% of all buyers include open houses in their information search. And the trend is highest among Millennial buyers (ages 35–44), 54% of whom consulted open houses.
This summer, Howard Hanna, Allen Tate, and Allen Tate/Beverly-Hanks are excited to present a series of Twilight Open House events specifically to help capture those buyers! Taking place in the evening during the middle of the week, these events are scheduled to accommodate buyers whose weekends are full during the summer months.
Ask your agent about including your listing in an upcoming Twilight Open House event! The full schedule for 2025 is as follows:
- Wednesday, June 4
- Wednesday, June 25
- Wednesday, July 9
- Wednesday, July 23
- Wednesday, August 6
- Wednesday, August 20
Are you planning to buy a home this summer? Don’t forget to attend a Twilight Open House event in your area.
What did we miss?
Tidying up for every open house and showing can feel like a lot of work. But once you have a plan in place, and you practice it pretty regularly, it will feel like less and less work every time—because it will be.
Do you have any advice about how to tidy up your home for a scheduled Twilight Open House or a surprise showing? What tricks have you tried? Share them with us in the comments.
Allen Tate is the Carolinas’ largest real estate company based on closed sales volume, with more than 70 offices and 1,800 Realtors in the Charlotte, Triad, Triangle, High Country, Highland/Cashiers, and Asheville/Mountain regions of North Carolina, as well as the Upstate and Lowcountry regions of South Carolina. Allen Tate is a partner of Howard Hanna Real Estate, the largest privately held real estate broker in the United States. The full-service real estate company has 480 real estate, mortgage, insurance, title, and escrow service offices and more than 15,000 sales associates and staff across 13 states.
For more information, visit allentate.com and howardhanna.com.
