Tips for Keeping Your Home Prepped for Sale When You Have Kids

Tips for Keeping Your Home Prepped
for Sale When You Have Kids

One of the most important parts of selling a home is making sure the property is in tip-top shape before you list — and once it’s on the market. And this is no small feat. Getting your home ready includes organizing, decluttering, making repairs, tending to curb appeal and decorating your home so that it’s as appealing to buyers as possible.

With kids at home, however, preparation and maintenance can seem insurmountable, as children have a way of undoing hours worth of work in just a few minutes. And this can add to your stress levels when coupled with a last-minute showing. Fortunately, Kelly McDonald has some great tips parents can use to keep their homes looking great through the whole selling process.

Hire a Routine Cleaning Service

Start by finding help if you need it. At the end of the day, if both parents are busy, it’s easy for things to get out of hand, fast. Hiring a cleaning service can do wonders for making sure your home stays tidy while it’s on the market. This gives you more time to focus on your sale, your regular work, and keeping the household on track.

Start Packing

If you know you’re going to move soon, save yourself trouble through the sales process and beyond by packing up anything you won’t need for a few months and to enhance your home’s appeal. For example, you can go through your bookshelf and pick out a handful of books you’d like to read between now and your new place; everything else can get packed away. You can apply the same principle to out-of-season clothes, rarely-used kitchen appliances, and personal or highly stylized decor.

You can also keep your child’s room or playroom neater by implementing a toy rotation. Set out all your child’s toys and have them pick 10 or 15 to keep in their room. Box everything up, but offer them the chance to swap out some of their in-rotation toys for out of rotation toys on a regular interval (daily or weekly works well). Not only does this make it easier for them to keep their room clean, but it also helps renew the novelty of their toys, meaning they’ll actually enjoy them a lot more.

Make Cleaning a Family Task

Finally, make cleaning an all-family task. One of the hardest parts of tidying up is the fact that it often falls on one parent’s shoulders. Not only is this isolating, but it also just makes the work harder. Spreading out daily chores among everyone means that the work goes by faster and no one feels put upon.

Schedule a specific time each day, such as after dinner, for daily tidying. Have everyone work together to tidy up all the shared spaces, wash and put away dishes, sweep floors, and wipe down surfaces. When done daily and as a team, 20 minutes of cleaning up can keep your home in great shape. Plus, you can make it a habit that you carry with you to your new space - meaning you’ll have a much easier time keeping things tidy there, too.

These are just a few tips parents can use to help keep their home in great shape for selling. Staying on top of things is a challenge, but it’s well worth it when it comes to sellability. Finding ways to keep ahead of the game and get your kids involved in the preparation process will get your home sold much faster.

Have you decided it’s time to sell? Let Kelly Macdonald put her experience to work for you. Call today to set up an appointment! 403-617-8758