Managing the House Selling Process with Kids, Pets and Other Chaos.

I get asked this a lot.

How do you manage house showings with three dogs, two kids, a job, a husband? It’s not easy, but with some planning and foresight you can survive it with WINE.

WINE is the answer … okay well maybe AFTER you’ve sold your home. Clean first, wine later.

Serial Mover Pro Tips – Showings.

1. Realize you currently don’t live in your home, you live in a show home version of your home. Take a weekend before you list your house and visit some show homes or open houses in higher end areas. No one really lives there, and it won’t really seem like you do either. Once you have that firmly planted in your mind you can set your expectations accordingly.
2. If you can leave town for a few weeks with kids and pets (and husbands) it’s not a horrible idea. This will save you countless hours of cleaning and re-staging your home after your children have ravaged it.
3. If you can’t leave then you will have to be in ‘constantly ready for a showing mode’ which means: dishes always put away, laundry caught up, toy room tidy. If you spend an hour every night before bed just putting daily items away it will really help your morning.
4. Floors, bathrooms, kitchen will need to be wiped down, moped, vacuumed everyday – I’m sorry. Especially if you have kids/pets these are the areas that will need the most attention.
5. I have three adorable (HUGE) dogs. They smell less adorable. I use Sydney Hale Room Spray’s as a secret weapon of dog smell masking. Even if you don’t have dogs they are amazing.
   
6. Don’t forget the yard. Recently a huge wind storm knocked an old wasp nest on to our front porch – not something you’d want a would-be home buyer to encounter as their first impression.
7. Meals. While you’re showing you will want to avoid cooking with smelly items as food smells linger. No curry, garlic or even (gasp) bacon. For now, not forever – promise!
8. Understand the selling process will take time. You could be at this cleaning routine for a few months (not usually everyday). The most showings I personally had was around 32, in 30-days – which was A LOT for us. The home was historical so I believe we had a lot of people just wanting to see the home – not necessarily buy the home. 
   I actually still really miss this house!

I would love to hear other tips on managing this stressful phase of moving, so if you have some – send them over to me as you know I’m a serial mover so I’m bound to be back here in the near future.