Buying A Home
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Selling a home with young kids... any tips?
Tell me it's possible! 
We're looking to put our house on the
market very soon- by the end of summer for sure. While I'm super
excited, I have serious anxiety about how I'm going to keep my house
tidy 24/7. We don't have a whole lot of toys out at any given
time because I don't like clutter. I'm more worried about keeping
counters and surfaces wiped and clean, floors swept, stuff put away,
etc.- all things that are sometimes difficult to do and stay on top of
with young kids. I worry that our realtor will call and want to drop by
in 20 minutes and our house won't be ready.That, or I feel like I will
spend my entire day preparing for a potential showing.
Leslie G.
Re: Selling a home with young kids... any tips?
You're not weird for worrying about it. Honestly, there were many times where I was not "ready" but we just had to show anyway. In this market, we felt like we could not turn down any showing. Maybe only for one or two of our showings did we have more than 2 hours notice. I did keep a laundry basket in the back of my car to throw last minute things in if I was pressed for time and couldn't get all the toys and clothes put away. As far as cleaning, we had to hire cleaning people to come in monthly to do all the "hard" stuff like bathrooms and glass and floors, just so I could focus on keeping up with the day to day stuff.
It was frustrating, and I felt like I was so stressed, but now we are closing in two weeks and it was worth it. We were on the market for about 4 1/2 months before getting an offer.
I have two kids, a dog and a husband who lives in another state. There are stressful moments but I always just try and stay organized as I can. I do anything I can as I go along. If the counter is used, I immediately wipe it down; I vacuum when I can; as soon as a toy is dong being played with, it goes away and my older son must always clean up after himself; etc. I like the laundry basket idea as mentioned above. I also always try and make sure everything is straightened up before I go to bed.
We've, thankfully, have not had any last minute showings but just enough time to do any last minute things to get the house ready before a showing. It can be stressful but if you stay on top of it, it can be done. GL!
It is definitely a hassle selling with small kids but not impossible. We sold our last house when DD1 was 3 and DD2 was about 1 1/2. We rented a storage place and cleared a lot out. We only kept out as many toys as could fit in one toy box and the rest were packed. That way if a showing did pop up it was easy to throw everything in there and shut the lid. I had to make an effort to clean up as I went but it was ok.
I did tell my realtor that I needed an hour notice before a showing and mostly people were fine with that. I needed that time to run the vacuum (even if it was clean I liked to do it again), tidy up if needed, and get the kids and pets out of the house (we have a dog I'd bring with me in the car and a cat that I'd either scare under the bed with the vacuum or bring and we'd slide the litter box under the bed to hide it).
The worst part was that if I was going to be leaving the house for an extended period of time (to go to the zoo or whatever) I had to leave the house showing ready in case they called while I was out. And DH would have to run home (he worked fairly close) to grab our dog or I'd have to rush home.
From a buyer's perspective, I'd say don't sweat it too much. We saw a house that had three little kids, and it was a last-minute showing (and we were the first ones to even see it!)-- and we loved it. No, not every pillow was fluffed and in place, but you're looking at the house, not the current resident's mess.
Sure, your house might sell sooner if it's all perfect and so on, but the house we ended up buying was also not at ALL well-presented when we saw it. (The son lived in the master, and the walls were covered with nudie pics, for example.) But we knew it was in the right location, it had the right number of rooms/baths, and it was in our price range-- so long story short, I'd say don't worry too much. People know that kids have toys and can be messy. If your house is in generally good shape (walls not covered in marker scrawls), I don't think it'll be too big of an issue.
Good luck!
...............the papeete blog...............
"Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone." - Tommy Cooper
The best advice I could give would be to stay on top of the regular cleaning. Make sure you have good places for all the toys to go, that way you have a place to toss them that looks organized and/or is out of sight.
With little kids, there's no point in cleaning up the toys an hour before the showing - they'll just pull them out again! But you don't want to be scrambling to clean the kitchen counters or making the bed.
We knew about most showings the day before. The closest notice I had was like 6 or 7 hours.
We listed our condo when I first found out I was pregnant with my second baby but it didn't sell and we pulled the listing. We re-listed when my DS was 6 days old. If I could do it with a brand new infant and a 21 month old, and 2 dogs, anyone can!
Didn't even pay attention. It showed up as a new/unread thread and I didn't even look at the dates. Whoops!