Keys To Selling A Home When You Have Little Ones
A common motivating factor for homeowners to decide to sell and move is a little addition to the household. And Baby makes keeping a show house perfect very difficult! We once saw a three bedroom house with two bedrooms full of ONE child’s stuff plus MORE toys in the living room. Two of the bedrooms disappeared in a sea of toys in the minds of buyers and the house didn’t sell. Most buyers’ immediate interpretation of the mess is that the house has no storage.
A perfect model home looks like a great hotel suite, not a nursery school.
All the stuff new parents need to make life more convenient with a baby actually turns off many buyers interested in starter homes.
Think about it. Many buyers of starter homes are single. There are actually more households of singles in America today than there are married couples. They resent it that you have a relationship and they don’t. Or they just aren’t ready for the responsibility. Either way they don’t feel all fuzzy seeing your kiddie stuff everywhere.
The negative FEELINGS you create in your potential buyers get in the way of YOUR GOAL of a larger home!
You HAVE to make potential buyers feel GOOD, not bad. It will put them in the mood to BUY!
So, how do you cope?
There are some alternatives.
1. Move before you have the baby. It might be best if you move before you get pregnant. If the pregnancy is complicated in any way, moving could be hard on both Mom and Dad.
2. But for still more stress add keeping a house perfect with an exhausted Mom and an infant or toddler or two. Being a parent is harder than it looks. It can be overwhelming. You see? Being parents is hard work and selling a house is hard work, too. It’s a double whammy. It’s really hard to sell a house even if you don’t have young children. Pack up some stuff for charity and take a tax deduction and put the rest away in rooms that don’t look too much like kiddie rooms. You want them to look like regular bedrooms. Tell the kids they can decorate their rooms in the next house.
3. Add on to your current house and just stay there. If you have the room on a lot and the neighborhood will support the investment, it might be great if you love your neighborhood.
4. Buy in a family neighborhood to start with if it fits your goals.
5. Or control yourself with the baby stuff. If the house is not swimming in plastic baby stuff and you have a nursery that is neutral and restrained you might get offers in spite of the kiddie stuff. It really doesn’t have to fill EVERY room in the house. A handy closet, trunk, cabinet or a garbage bag can help with quick cleanups. The closer the storage solution is to the mess, the easier it will be to clean up. It won’t be easy, but it will be easier.
6. Get help with cleaning. This is especially important if you work. But families are messy. You’ll still have a LOT to do.
7. Stage your house perfectly and set a realistic price so the sales process is shortened. The quicker it sells the less time you will have to be perfect. If you need help with this your realtor can help. It will be great for the family, too for the process to be shortened.
Being a parent IS more important than selling a house so get things right from the start on selling your home. You’ll end up with a lot more time for your little ones in the long run.
Paula Stone is a black belt home remodeler and former Realtor. She works with her husband Ron in his mortgage business. Their website is full of Free information about the mortgage process and real estate. Visit it at Alabama Mortgage Loan
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