Tips for Selling Your Home When You Have Kids

You know that you need to make your home look as good as possible to sell it quickly and for the best price, but that can be a little tricky when you have children. You constantly fight clutter when you have kids, and you feel like you are always cleaning up spills and other messes.

It’s hard enough to make the house presentable when you want to have company over, let alone when you want to convince someone to buy your house. But the situation is not hopeless. You just need to think ahead and have a plan in place. Here are a few tips for how to sell your Maricopa home when you have children:

Get Everything Organized

The biggest challenge with kids is trying to keep the clutter down. Kids leave their toys everywhere, they take off their jackets and shoes and throw them wherever they happen to be at the time, and they’re constantly getting into the pantry and making a mess of it. The best thing you can do to make your home look cleaner – and bigger – is to get all of that clutter organized before you are ready to start showing the house.

Set up hooks and cubbies in the hall closet or entryway where kids can easily put their jackets and shoes when not in use. Put bins, toy boxes and shelves in their rooms to organize all their toys and books. Puts shelves and organizers in your pantry to keep all the snacks and drinks in order. When you need to clean, it will be easier to put everything away when you know that it all has a specific place.

Clean Everything

Kids are dirty. There’s just no way around it. Over the years, they will take a toll on your house, even if you are vigilant about cleaning throughout the week. You need to do a deep clean just before you put your home on the market.

Pay special attention to the floors, walls and baseboards. Clean up all furniture, such as the legs of your couch or the sides of your kitchen cabinets. Layers of grime can make these things look old and unkempt, which can make your house look old and unkempt. Be sure to remove any stickers or paint from children’s beds and dressers.

Scrub the Personalizations

As a parent, you likely have a lot of art work and mementos that personalize your home. You probably have your children’s artwork hanging around the house, many photos of your family on the walls and shelves, and maybe even your children’s names painted on the walls in their rooms or on their doors. You probably have a height chart marked somewhere on a wall or door also.

Any kind of personalizations will make it harder for a potential buyer to see themselves in your home. You need to pack away the artwork and the family photos, and you need to paint over that height chart and the name tags or murals. Take pictures of these to preserve them. Then put out minimal décor to show off the potential of the home without pigeonholing it.

Put Things in Storage

Your kids are going to be using a lot of toys and other items every day that take up a lot of room and make your home look more cluttered. Instead of putting away all of these things, have large, plastic storage bins ready to stow these items away when you get the notification that someone is on the way to view the home. You can quickly put toys inside and then put these bins in the attic or crawl space.

Put away major items that are not used all the time or that are not needed right away. The less you have to put away when buyers are expected, the easier it will be to get ready.

Paint

A fresh coat of paint can make your home seem clean and new – which is likely sorely needed after you’ve been in a house for a while with children. The walls will start to look dingy, and they will likely have a lot of scrapes and scuffs that can’t be wiped away. A fresh coat of paint will make everything look great.

Choose neutral colors like white, beige or light grey for your repaint. If you have bright colors currently – especially in the kids’ rooms – paint over them with neutral colors. Not every potential buyer will have children and want a room in the colors of Thomas the Tank Engine. And even those who do have kids might not like your design aesthetic. Go for neutral and attract more potential buyers.

Have a List of Places to Go

You may not have much notice that someone is coming to view your home. Ideally, you would have a few hours, but you are likely to only get an hour or less. Have a list of places to go at the ready so that you aren’t scrambling for what to do to keep the kids busy. Your list might include local parks, museums, places to eat, or friends to call for an impromptu playdate.

Try to keep a few special places on your list to entice the kids out of the house when they aren’t up for another visit to the park or aren’t particularly inspired by a visit to the museum.

Follow all these tips, and you’ll make the house selling process a little easier and get results faster.

The experienced realtors at The Maricopa Real Estate Company are ready to help you sell your Maricopa home. We know the area well, and we know the strategies that will help your home stand out. We can connect you with the right buyers to sell your home faster and for more money. Contact us today to talk with an experienced Maricopa realtor and learn more about how we can help you with selling your home. We can also help you find the right home if you are looking to buy a home for sale in Maricopa.

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