It's a magical moment for every buyer - the day you take possession of your new home. You have spent the last several months shopping for the home with your Realtor, shopping different mortgage rates and carefully doing all the legal paperwork and taking care of all the details involved to finally take you to this day - Possession Day!
As you walk up to the front door you feel like you should have a giant pair of scissors to cut a bright red ribbon on your new home. This is how many homebuyers feel and then ... the big letdown ... THEY DIDN'T CLEAN IT! Every Realtor has had a possession day like this - you walk into the house and it's dirty.
There are things left behind, that old desk they couldn't fit up the stairs, the piles wood scraps under the deck, the dog run so full you wonder how Rover even fit in there in the first place. As I write this my sister just took possession of her new home in Calgary. It wasn't quite as bad as this but it wasn't good either. Every buyer, especially first timers, needs to keep in mind that cleanliness is a subjective measure - what's clean to you isn't necessarily clean to the sellers of your home. So keep possession day as magical as you can but bring a bottle of Mr. Clean and some rags too. Chances are you'll need them.