Tips for Selling a House with Kids

Selling your family’s home can be stressful, throw kids into that equation and everything is magnified! We sold our home when our kids were 2 and 4 years old (it went on the market the first week of lockdown in March 2020) so I understand how crazy it can be. I wrote these Tips for Selling a House with Kids based on our experience and what I learned.

Life is chaotic and messy at baseline and now strangers are coming into your home and want to live there, what?!? But this too will pass and there is a reason you are selling so keep your eyes on the prize, whatever it may be.

There are some things you can do to make the process a little more organized, and dare I say easier? I hope my Tips for Selling a House with Kids help you and your family!

1. Safety First

There are certain things you simply cannot do with kids or pets in your home. A good realtor will understand this and support you. Removing locks from doors, baby gates, and cabinet locks all come to mind. If you can remove your baby gate for showings great, if not your family’s safety comes first. Typically a family will be looking at your family’s home and understands that family homes have things in place to keep children safe.

2. Be Realistic

Typically most of us still need to live in our home while it’s on the market. Stripping down to nothing as in no toys, no photos, no clutter at all is impossible. Also remember your kids do not care that you are trying to sell the house so be sure to leave some toys, especially any favorites, at home and out of storage.

Designate a toy bin in each major play location to quickly throw them all in before showings. That way everyone knows where to find them afterward, hopefully avoiding any meltdowns!

3. Don’t Worry About Removing Every Photo

Potential buyers know that someone lives in that house. While I took down any current pictures of my children, for safety reasons, their beautiful newborn photos that I have framed in the house stayed up. They look like Anne Getty or another artists’ photograph and my children don’t look like that anymore so they don’t pose a safety risk. Occasional photos in nice frames look better than all blank empty walls, lots of nail holes, or random mismatched items that you grab to take up space.

4. Keep Decorations Neutral

One thing that my realtor advised was to take out the seasonal items such as towels and tablecloths, and brightly colored items in our home, and replace them with neutrals. As a Mom, I go a little overboard with seasonal decor because the kids love it!

Changing to neutrals lets people picture their own items there. You also avoid offending anyone who may not celebrate the same holidays that your home is decorated for at the time.

5. Use a Real Estate Photographer

Hopefully, your real estate agent sets this up for you. Our realtor also paid for her preferred real estate photographer to come and take listing photos. Make everything perfect for the photos, then make it livable for you and your family. The idea of the photos is to draw people into your beautiful home. Then let your beautiful, family-friendly home, speak for itself.

6. Talk to Your Neighbors.

Neighbors are great resources for you as a seller. They likely have people visit their homes who comment on the neighborhood or area as one they would like to live in. Odds are your neighbors know other families in your home’s designated school district that may be looking to move but want to stay at the same school.

Neighbors may also have insight into pricing if they recently purchased or sold their home. Finally, it’s always nice to have someone looking out for your home during showings when you can’t be there.

7. Hire a Realtor

Mama, odds are you do not have the time or energy to take this on. This is definitely something to outsource. A realtor can advise you on realistically staging your home to sell and guide you through the process. They aren’t emotionally attached to the home and can point out things that you may not see. Plus a good realtor should be an excellent advocate for you and your family in terms of selling, hopefully making it a quick, positive and successful experience so that you can move on.

8. Make All of the Lists

Let’s be honest, showings are stressful, and rounding up kids with little notice can make it even crazier to get out the door.

A quick ”showing decluttering” list with each room itemized is a systematic way to quickly be sure everything is ready for showings. Things like opening up all of the blinds, closing a couple of doors to encourage flow from room to room, popping toys into their bins, and quickly sweeping the hardwood floors under where the kids eat were on my showing list.

I also assigned tasks on the list to myself and my husband so that we both knew what needed to be done and could divide and conquer quickly. Especially since you may not always have a lot of notice before showings.

9. Remove Your Valuables

When it comes to the safety of you and your family, don’t take any chances. You never know who will be walking through your home or how attentive their realtor will be.

This includes removing anything with your kids’ full names on them, any birth certificates any checkbooks, or items that you have out on a desk.

If possible remove your jewelry box, a portable safe if you have one, or small file cabinets. Lock your large file cabinets as they likely cannot be removed. If it’s too much to remove things with each showing consider storing them in a safe location, such as a family member’s home, while your house is on the market.

10. Keep It Clean

In these COVID times, we did ask that potential buyers remove their shoes or wear booties when in our home. Whether or not they did, we will never know, but I like to think they did. After each showing, the kids would play outside while I did a wipe-down.

Simply take a Clorox or your favorite cleaning wipe and wipe down the surfaces that people likely touched. Light switches, doorknobs, and cabinet pull in the kitchen would be a great place to focus as well as any additional contact points specific to your home.

This Too Will Pass

Once you are settled in your new home, this phase of listing, showings, and selling will be behind you. The way the market is right now, your home will likely move quickly which can be stressful but also moves things along towards your end goal faster!!

I hope these Tips for Selling a House with Kids helped you! What tips have you learned from selling your home with kids running around? I would love to hear from you!