Recently my husband and I decided to put our home up for sale. We spent about six weeks furiously cleaning, decluttering and updating. When our home was ready to sell, we contacted our real estate agent and put the sign in the yard. This was our first experience with selling a home, and we have had a lot to learn. Leaving a spotless home at a minute’s notice with a toddler in tow is not an easy task, but we discovered a few strategies that made our job easier.
1.Prepare to eat dinner away from home.
The majority of our showings took place during the dinner hour after people finished work for the day. We could count on showings starting at 4:30 or 5 pm and ending at 8 pm. Because we were unable to eat at home, we arranged to eat dinner with friends. We were also prepared to eat out. We kept our Entertainment Book in the car as well as other coupons to some of our favorite local restaurants. Although there was one evening when we were able to eat dinner at home due to a window between showings, every other evening was booked solid with showings.
2.Prepare meals that don’t require much clean up.
I imagine the number of showings would have decreased after the first week or two, but we still had to be ready to leave the house without much warning. Crockpot or one skillet meals require much less clean up than most and the less clean up the better when you have to leave a spotless house every time you walk out the door!
3.Prepare the house to leave at a minute’s notice.
We requested an hour’s notice before a showing and most agents were respectful of that request, but even during the short week our home was on the market, two showings were called in with less than 10 minutes notice. One was called in so late that the scheduling service didn’t have time to let the agent know that I couldn’t accommodate the showing before the agent and her client were standing on my driveway wanting to come inside. However, even an hour’s notice is not enough time to clean the house from top to bottom, especially with an enthusiastic toddler’s “help.” We came up with a few strategies that helped us leave a clean house without much stress.
- Clean out a top drawer or two in the areas that tend to accumulate clutter. For us, the areas that accumulate clutter are the kitchen and our bedroom. We kept a drawer in the kitchen relatively empty for putting mail or other stray papers in when we had to leave, and we put clean clothes that hadn’t yet been folded or other random bits of clutter from upstairs in a laundry basket that we stowed at the top of the closet.
- Keep an extra hand towel for daily use stowed under the counter in bathrooms and the kitchen so that the visible hand towel stays fresh and clean.
- Deal with clean up tasks immediately. For me this meant that I had to get in the habit of unloading the dishwasher as soon as it had finished its cycle so that I could reload it with dirty dishes should I have to leave. I wiped down the table and cleaned up all the dishes as soon as lunch was over.
4. Declutter your home before listing it to sell.
Decluttering your home will not only make your home more appealing to buyers, but it will also save you a major headache during the period of time when you are showing your home. The less knick-knacks you have around, the less there will be to dust. The less toys with tiny parts available for the kids to play with, the less time-consuming clean up will be. We decided there were lots of items we could live without during the time our home was for sale. We put away our daughter’s ball pit which takes her 15 seconds to mess up and us at least 5 minutes to clean up. We don’t have an office area so our printer was set up on a side table in our living room, but we moved it downstairs to the storage area for the time being. We boxed up several other items around the house and removed a few pieces of furniture and our home was show-ready.
5.Prepare easy take-along activities for the kids.
To entertain my toddler daughter when away from home, we kept crayons and paper in the car as well as a sun hat and sunscreen for impromptu visits to the park, a few books and small toys and a pack n play in case we had to be away from home during nap time. We also keep a small, plastic storage box in our car at all times that has a sippy cup, place mat and bibs for eating away from home.
If you have any tips to share regarding how you kept your sanity when selling a home, I’d love to hear them! Please leave a comment below.
