How to Sell a House While Raising Small Children

Selling a house in today's market is a difficult and stress-filled task for just about anyone. How much worse, then, can it be when you not only have to worry about the house, but about small children who still need to live in that house? Children mean messes, smells, distractions, time commitments, and so much more. How do those people with young ones manage? How will you do it? Here are some helpful hints, from someone who's been there, on how you can sell your house effectively, and still maintain a home environment that is fun, healthy, and comfortable for your young children.

Minimize your messes. A cluttered house detracts from the overall appeal of it for buyers. When people come through a house on a showing, they are looking to see light, space, and an open environment that appeals to their imagination and feels like a place they could call home. They don't want to see, or trip on, toys on the floor, dirty socks scattered around, cereal ground into the carpet, or any of the other myriad ways in which a house becomes a lived-in home environment for the Sesame Street set. If you can, take a week or two before your home goes on the market, and rent a storage unit. Proceed to fill it with all that lovely clutter that you don't need for day-to-day life, but which you enjoy having anyway. If you have extra furniture, try to get some in there as well, to make your house feel bigger. For kids, try to separate out half the toys. Keep half at home, and put half in storage. If you label the boxes clearly and keep them near the door, you can periodically rotate a box at a time in and out. This way, your children will always have "new" toys to play with, and won't get bored with a decreased selection. It may also help to keep to the rule of threes. When your child is playing with toys at home, only let him or her take three at a time, before putting them back to get more. This way, when you have a showing and only twenty minutes to prepare, you only have to pick up three toys, instead of thirty.

Hard floors are easier to clean. This is a big one in our house. While we have a kitchen with a tile floor, our dining room is carpeted. Under normal circumstances, this doesn't pose a problem, but when a showing can occur at any time, it's never good to spend half your prep time trying to scrub spaghetti sauce out of the carpet because someone spilled a bowl of dinner onto the floor. It is far, far easier to feed the kids at the kitchen table, or to even put in a small, folding table for the kids in the kitchen, than it is to clean a stained carpet in a hurry. While it might seem like an inconvenience to put kids in the kitchen for dinner, it will help keep your stress levels down while showing the house and it will definitely cut down on your cleaning time.

Smells are for eliminating. Children are veritable smell machines. If they're in diapers, the smells are easy to identify. If you have children in diapers, and you don't already have one, seriously consider getting a diaper disposal system that seals in the diapers, rather than just using a trashcan or diaper pail. If you use cloth diapers, make sure you change the pail frequently and faithfully. If you use disposable diapers, change the disposal unit regularly, and always before showings, if at all possible. Buyers want to smell pleasant things when they try to imagine living in your house, and only dung beetles are likely to find a dirty diaper appealing. Likewise, make it a priority to do the kids' laundry even more often than you used to. Children have accidents, spill food on their clothes, get muddy, and so on. All of those, when left in the dirty laundry bin, make for unpleasant background smells. If your washer allows for different load sizes, it can't hurt to throw in a load of clothes right before a showing, just to make sure that you eliminate that source of unpleasantness. It also makes sure that those favorite clothes are always nice and clean!

Get their help! Children seem to always love to help their parents do big jobs. It makes them feel like a valuable part of the family and boosts their sense of self-worth. It can also help keep your life less stressful if you can rely on them to do some jobs on their own. A child as young as three can learn how to put his or her toys back where they belong, and a reward system including praise and affection is very effective at gaining compliance. Older children can learn to put their clothes away and make their beds, saving valuable time. They can also be taught to put their dishes in the sink, clear their places, and clean up after dinner. All of this helps keep your house clean and saves you time.

Make time for fun. This is a very important one, both to help you feel like it is, still, your home, and to help minimize tantrums in children who may know something is going on, but not what. Some of our favorites include baking cookies together (a source of good smells), coloring in the kitchen, reading together, and cuddling up for movie nights. If you can find some fun activities for your children that require minimal supervision and make little to no mess, it can free you up to do some work on your own, or even get in a few moments for relaxation.

The bottom line is that it's still your home, even when it's on the market for sale. You do have to try to keep it as clean and tidy as possible, but you still have to live there. Buyers will understand things like holiday decorations, teddy bears on beds, and toys neatly put away. If you can minimize your mess and your stress, you can help keep your house in showing condition without sacrificing your home life, or depriving your children of the chance to play and enjoy a comfortable home. Best of luck to you in selling your house!