In the fourth part of our series “Tips for Selling Your Home Faster and For More Money”, we discuss the topic of how children can negatively affect a home sale and what measures should be taken to neutralize potential problems.

Children and their “stuff” present a unique challenge when it comes to staging and properly presenting your home for sale.   It is difficult enough for adults to live in their home, while being ready to show it at a moments notice.   When seller’s throw their children into the mix, things get a lot more complicated.

Strategies for Marketing Your Child Filled Home

1. Toys:  When selling a home, it is essential to store toys in container and limit them to one area of the home.   Eliminate stuffed animal hammocks, remove and store life sized playhouses and forts.  Not everyone has children, and even those that do are not interested in seeing a roomful of your children’s toys strown across the floor. 

2. Decor:   While the home is for sale, even the teenager’s need to open their curtains, turn off their boombox and make their beds.   Bookshelves should be neat and orderly.  Clothes need to be hung up or placed into drawers.   Art projects, beads, posters and other items that personalize the room, need to be removed and stored so the prospective buyer can see the space, not the stuff.

3. Outdoors:   Neatly store all bikes, trikes, skateboards and pushcars out of the way and out of sight.  Remove the swing set, fort or treehouse.   Buyer’s want to look at the landscape and size of the yard.   If you want to sell your property quickly, remove the clutter, add seasonal color and emphasize outdoor entertaining and relaxation.

4. Showings:  Take your children out of the home, when it is being shown.   Walk the kids around the block, take them out for ice cream, make an arrangement for them to go to a neighbor’s house or send older children over to their friend’s house.   Children and teenagers can distract prospective buyer’s and encourage them to rush through the showing, which is not good, if you need to sell your home.

5. Odors:   Remember pigpen from the Charlie Brown cartoons?  As funny as it is, kids and their things often smell.  Remove dirty diapers from the room, immediately.  Don’t use diaper pails or if you must, empty often and make sure they are clean and odor free.  Get rid of smelly sneakers, stinky blankets, milk spotted carpets and food hidden under beds.  Clean out the fish tanks, gerbal habitats, iguana cages and always be sensitive to smell when selling your home.

We all love children, but the truth is buying a home is a very adult, business matter.   If the prospective buyer can not picture themselves living in a home, they will not buy it, no matter the price or condition.    Remember you are selling a home, not a children’s home.

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.  Ask us about adding the power of the MLS to your home selling strategy.  We have helped thousands of owner’s market their property and we can help you, too.