Looking for some advice on how to best manage selling a house and house hunting with a kid. We'll be putting our condo up for sale in a few months, so we're getting ready for the chaos of staging and getting rid of all the things. This is our first sale, so my only experience is seeing what our friends are going through with their house right now. Any good tips on how to manage putting away all the toys and the change in the kid's environment while we're living in a "show house"? We'll be house hunting at the same time, which also seems chaotic with a 3.5 year old. Unfortunately we don't have family near us, so we don't have easy "go hang with grandma" options and would either have to drag the kiddo with us or pay someone to hang out with her. Thankfully we're not as schedule minded now that she's older and doesn't need naps, but I'd love ideas on how to manage her while we're trying to look at houses too.
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We sold our house last spring, and I put away almost all of my kid's toys and just left out the nicer looking things. Luckily our house sold in a day.... but they didn't miss the toys that much (I kept them packed up until we got into our new house). We actually put our new house on the market this fall, and it was on the market for about a month... we just left for work/school every morning with everything picked up, floors vacuumed, bathroom and kitchen sinks baby wiped down, beds made. That way we could approve showings from work without worrying about how the house looked. Oh, and we didn't cook much at that time- less mess to clean up and smells to cover up. Our kids have always been okay getting dragged to a bunch of showings- we always have a carrier for the baby and the big kid likes looking around at new places. Good luck!
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@Mrs. Carrot: as far as house hunting, my 3 year old loved it. She would get really excited to go to open houses, it was really funny. She would walk around saying things like, ooh this is a nice room. Is this my room?
That said it's harder for the adults to seriously look at a house that way. Since most houses we would walk into and know right away it wasn't the one, it was ok. It was more challenging on the houses we seriously considered. Then we would take turns walking around with LO and walking through by ourselves. Not ideal but not too bad. One house we were serious about we went back and looked with a contractor, and we did pay a babysitter for that.
The baby was more challenging but sometimes she fell asleep in the car seat and I would leave her in the kitchen with the realtor!
Staging your condo- no advice. That's seriously tough.
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We sold our condo when DS was a baby, so I just wore him to the showings and open houses we went to. Now with a 3 year old and a baby, I'd probably do a work from home day and go out for an hour or two in the middle of the day while the kids are at daycare.
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@Mrs. Carrot: my agent gave me a great tip: Make every room have a purpose. If you don't have a play room for the kids, make the kids rooms the only rooms where there are toys. Get bins and baskets to put toys/books into.
Minimalism. Remove as much as possible from the house before you list it. Do you really need those bathing suits right now? Can you pack away 2 of your 3 winter coats? Pack as much as possible. Keep some toys...pack up the rest. There are some you know they will always play with (in our house it was barbies and legos) the rest went to storage.
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I never minded seeing kids things around when we went to see houses. I do like seeing the rooms set up for their intended purpose though, so do you have a playroom in the dining area? If so, how much of a hassle is it to move that? if there's no place else to put the stuff, at least have a floor plan available with the intended use mapped out.
And make sure you if have booties for people to put on over their shoes, that there is someplace for them to sit to put them on, lol.
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@looch: That's the trickiest part - we don't have a formal dining room because we never used it and it was easier to have that be a play space, but our agent wants to stage it as a dining room (which I get). So we'll have to move all the stuff that's in there (play kitchen, etc) into storage because there's just no space in her bedroom for it all, and leave some stuff that we can take in and out easily. Hopefully it sells fast. And great tip on the booties!
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For selling your condo: Go through the house and declutter declutter declutter. Remove as much personal stuff as you can (photos- without leaving blank spaces, personal items, toys, etc). Think of it this way, it will be easier when you actually move.
I would stage your dining room (people can't see past what the room is used for, so if it's currently a playroom, prospective buyers won't see it as a potential dining room) and get a few bins for the toys that you can easily throw everything into and hide somewhere during showings (kids room?) Before showings, take as much stuff as possible off the counters (kitchen AND baths), wipe down sinks and counters, straighten towels, make beds, and put down toilet lids.Good luck!
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We sold our townhouse last year, bought and moved with our 1.5 year old and a dog. I wont lie, it sucked, but luckily our house wasn't on the market for too long (maybe a month with one deal falling through...) Our realtor had a free staging service which was absolutely amazing. Each room was assigned a purpose as others mentioned, and we hired painters to paint our room and the kitchen a more neutral colour. The listing photos were amazing and we had offers within days both times.
The best thing we did was purge everything that wasn't needed. Get rid of stuff and put the rest into a storage unit. This helped force us to tidy and de clutter and we had less to pack when we did move in a short time frame. We put toys in bins and tidied up every morning/evening to be ready to go. I put diaper stuff away in his dresser, made his bed, etc. On short notice I would throw dirty clothes, mail, crap, etc into laundry bins and put in the garage or the car. I even had a garbage bag of dirty dishes one time because there wasn't time to clean them! One time DS was sick at home so I had to drag him to the mall and walk around for two hours during two showings...that was the worst it got, but we sold the house during one of those times so it was worth it.
We took our son with us to showings which was fine, and then had grandparents watch him when we took a second in depth look at the house we ended up buying. We had him stay with grandparents overnight on moving day , and we set up his room first and his stuff got priority so when they brought him the next day to the new house everything was where it should be for him. We had no issues moving with him (the dog was another story ha)
ETA: leave all lights on and curtains open when you leave for a showing. Personal stuff away out of sight and only generic artwork. Nothing on counters if possible. Wipe shower walls down and open shower curtain. Tidy up your walkway and front door entrance and look at your house from the curb.
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We've never sold a house so no advice there, but we dropped off our 2-year-old with some very generous friends who offered to watch LO while we house-hunted. As it turns out, we found a house we liked on the first day and bought it, after seeing only about 5 houses. While we were wavering on whether to put in an offer (since we had this idea that we should look at dozens of places over a couple months), we were like, "We have a toddler! We can't be house hunting every weekend! Let's just do it!!" It worked out, thankfully.
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@hummusgirl: Haha, I'm a little worried we'll either end up the same way or take forever. Husband and I have different ideas on what we want, so that might be our biggest issue.
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@Mrs. Carrot: I get it, my son's room is pretty compact, there's no way I could put a play kitchen in there right now, especially since basically every wall is taken up with actual furniture.
Do you have a table to even put in the dining area?
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@looch: We have an IKEA table in the kitchen that they suggested moving into the dining room. It's small and light wood, which doesn't match the cherry floors we have, so I'm not sure how that's gonna work, but I guess we'll figure that out with them.
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@Mrs. Carrot: maybe you can do a floor length table cloth over it? To make it less kitchen and more dining?
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We just sold out condo in dec and move out next week.
We got a storage unit and packed up a ton of stuff before we put the condo on the market. I packed up most of the toys and only left toys that I could keep organized. That was the biggest help, taking as much to storage as possible before putting it up.
The hardest part was keeping the house clean for showings. It was downright stressful for me. We told out relator to give as as much notice as possible, but everyone seemed to want to view on two hours notice. When it came down to it, I wasn't prepared to say no to a showing as I wanted it to sell as quick as possible. With two toddlers and being pregnant, I had a couple meltdowns. As long as I kept on top of things, it wasnt too bad though.
So not much for advice, but I hope you sell and find something quickly
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I've considered doing this and the only strategy I could think of was to send the kids off with DH for a day, clean the house very well and take lots of photos. I don't have a chance against them when it comes to keeping the place clean every day, so I thought having nice pictures is the best I could aim for.
And house hunting with kids is so hard, but also kind of fun. We've had visits when they would have a field day and hide in all the closets, and visits when DS would whine non stop from the minute we set foot in the house till we left. It was nerve wracking but at the same time, I figured if they absolutely hate a place maybe moving there is not the best idea, but if they like it it's got potential.
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@Mrs. Carrot: we have been through the house hunting stage of things, although ours was for new construction we had to view a lot of models and we have had lots of appointments for contracts, design meetings etc. So far we have gone with both our 4 year old and 3 month old to all the meetings.
For our 4 year old we would have games on a tablet for her and then for the infant we would schedule the appointments in such a way that it was right after he had been changed and fed so he would usually sleep right through it -
A friend recently was in this boat and she did a major declutter job, left the kids with their favorite toy each and a big box of blocks. She had a couple of extra laundry baskets and she'd do a quick deep of extra "stuff" upstairs, downstairs and in the basement, one basket per floor before showings because they kept getting last minute appointments. I think she also had a cleaning crew come weekly on Fridays for the couple of weeks until they sold since most viewings were on the weekend.
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We just did this last summer! Like you, we had no use for our formal dining room and had converted it into a playroom (and a super cute playroom for that matter!). We actually left it that way and it wasn't an issue at all!
Everyone's given you great advice above! I would say, during the house hunting part, if you are looking in a new area to find a fun place to take your LO after looking at houses. My daughter was around the same age when we were looking and to get her excited we would say, "ok, we are going to look at X houses and then take you to XYZ!" It made her a lot more agreeable during the whole process.
We were super picky too and looked for three months before we found our current house!
Best of luck to you!
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@Mrs. Carrot: I think renting a storage unit for a month is well worth the cost. Your house will show much better without all the kid toys and extra clutter. I would literally pack up half of all your stuff. Take out of season clothes from your closets (to make the closet appear less full and therefore bigger), take out all stuff from closets that you are just storing like decorations, suitcases, random boxes, papers, files, etc. Put away all major kid toys that you can live without for a couple of weeks---even gates, playpens, big kitchens, toy boxes, etc. Keep only a couple of items that you can move to the trunk of your car for showings. Declutter kitchen countertops--even stuff you typically use like dish drainers and coffee makers, if they take up counter space. Pack away most of your bookshelves that are open and artfully organize what's left on the shelves--just a few tasteful books and vases, etc.
Then, each showing you will just have to vacuum, clean counters instead of also decluttering both times.
When we were shown our current condo--it was IMMACULATE. They had 1 child, and there were maybe 2-3 toys in the whole house, and nothing in the living room. After we made the offer and it was accepted, we had to go for a walkthrough after the inspection to see an issue with the thermostat--I was shocked at how cluttered the house seemed with all their baby gear back in there. They had baby gates blocking off the kitchen, they had baby bouncers and activity tables, and jumperoos and those stuffed animal nets in the bedrooms--and none of that was there when they had the house on the market. The difference was amazing.
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@Mrs. Carrot: Hows it going?
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We are currently house hunting with a 2 and 4
year old and it's not actually as daunting as you would imagine. The girls love seeing the different houses and exploring the different rooms and bedrooms. They like searching for things (like "where is the basement door" or "where do these stairs/ door go") and have loved the houses that have pets (cats, small dogs, fish) that are present for the showings. If they are getting rowdy one of us takes them outside to play in the yard for a few minutes then we switch off. If all else fails there is always their tablets LOL We have also gotten babysitters when we visit certain properties like forclosure fixed uppers or houses that are still in the building process. -
@T.H.O.U.: Thanks for asking! We haven't really started yet - our bathroom renovation is likely to happen in a few weeks (mid March), and then after that we'll be diving into staging and the whole process. For now I've basically been cleaning out and tossing as much as I possibly can, and trying to get my husband to do the same (he's a bit of a hoarder). And I saved this thread to come back to once we're in the thick of it
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@Mrs. Carrot: Yes! Thats us too. We need to get our windows replaced, a storm door replaced and the house painted. Other than that we need to clean out some clutter. I'm thinking of investing in some shelving and big storage bins for the garage. We dont know when/if we really would move so I can't rent a storage unit. At least this way its nicely out of the house and in the garage. The two big places I want to purge first is the closets and under the bathroom sinks (I know I dont use 1/3 of whats under there! )
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@T.H.O.U.: We actually ended up getting a storage unit by unexpected circumstance - friends of ours got a very unexpected job offer in another state and had to sell their house quickly so they wanted to give away most of their furniture and we were only happy to take it since we'll be upgrading from a condo to a house and will need stuff. We moved some stuff from our place in there too, and it was good motivation for hubby to clean out our storage spot in the building. Now if I can only get him to cull his closet! When do you guys think you'll be diving into the selling/buying?
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@Mrs. Carrot: Dh and I need to sit down and draft a timeline. We can really only get work done on the weekends so that limits it. I want to make a list of the purging areas and pick 2-3 per weekend to tackle and then estimate when we think the house would be prepped. The bigger jobs (windows/paint) will be outsourced so they can be done during the week. Im guessing maybe listing in May? We are going to talk to our relator about maybe just listing for 6-8 weeks during that peak summer and see if we get a good offer. If not, we will probably pull our listing and stay put for a while.
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