Today I’m answering the question, “How do you keep your home show ready while it’s on the market?”

This was the first question I had when we started discussing the possibility of moving and it is the question I am asked most frequently. After having our home on the market for the better part of two months (while having the whole family sheltering-in-place at home), this is a question I feel better qualified to discuss.

If you missed part one and two of this series, I have been documenting the process of selling a home with a one, three and five-year-old (during a global pandemic).

 In part one, I discuss how NOT to sell a home with young kids. Part two covers practical tips about how to declutter and stage a home for sale. In Part 4, I’ll discuss specifically how to list, market and sell your home for sale by owner.

I expected that our house would sell quickly once we put it on the market. It was a sellers’ market, homes were going quickly, and we had done the work to clean and declutter as much as possible.

I did not expect that a shelter-in-place order would be issued for our state one day after I listed our home for sale by owner.

But after two months of having all five of us at home 24/7 (except for showings), we’ve developed a pretty good system for getting ready for a showing.

Here are a few things we’ve learned along the way:

Declutter and Organize

I talked specifically about HOW we did this in my last post, but I want to underscore the point that the most important factor in being able to keep your home show ready is the work you do on the home before you list it. The more you declutter and organize, the more you get rid of stuff or pack it away, the easier it will be to quickly get your house ready for a showing (and the better it will show).

Every single item should have a designated place in your home. If you have stuff that you can’t easily pack away, then have a plan for what you will do with it in the event that you get a call for a showing.

We’ve only had an issue of not knowing where to put something once.

We got a call asking to see our house in about an hour. The house was a disaster, not only due to the standard messiness ( toys, books , dishes, clothing items, etc.), but also because we had just picked up all of the girls’ school supplies from their preschool. There were memory books, artwork, school supplies, picture frames and assorted other papers strewn across our living room floor. None of those items had been sorted through or designated a location yet.  I ended up throwing everything into our living room storage ottoman for the showing.

Storage, Storage, Storage

Speaking of our storage ottoman, having storage options around the house has made the process of showing our home go much more smoothly. So even when there are things out everywhere, we can put everything away relatively quickly. Toys go back in the toy bins. Games go in the closet. Stuffed animals go in the designated drawer. Dirty laundry goes into the washing machine.

Storage bins will become your new best friend. For smaller items, I store them in larger bins that pack away easily. For example, the girls’ bathroom counter previously held an assortment of toothpastes, hair gels, lotions and brushes. All of those items are still on the counter, but everything now sits in a plastic bucket. As soon as I get a call about the house, I simply place the entire bucket underneath the sink.

The same goes for the basket that all of the girls’ bath toys sits in. When they finish playing in the bath, all the toys go back in the bin. When we get a call about the house, the entire bin gets moved underneath the sink.

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Should You Pack All The Kids Toys Away?

Perhaps the most common suggestion I hear from other people is to pack all the kids’ toys away and only leave a few things out for them to play with.

I can see how this would be sustainable for a week or so, but I’m glad we didn’t follow this advice. Between being at home 24/7 and the home being on the market for over two months, I’m pretty sure the girls would have gone completely stir crazy without their toys.

The biggest reason I didn’t pack the toys away was because we have a place to put everything, without the rooms looking cluttered. Since almost all of our toys are stored in bins or closets, we have very few items sitting out for people to see.

For us packing toys away wouldn’t have made the house look less cluttered; it simply would have made cleaning things up easier. With fewer items to pull out, we would have had fewer messes to clean up.

Perhaps the best thing that has come from this season is that my five and three-year-old have become really adept at cleaning up their toys, something that wouldn’t have happened just a few months ago. We’ve been able to say to them, “We have someone that wants to see our house and I need you to go pick up all the toys in the basement.”

The girls can have the basement living area go from being covered with toys to having it 97% clean in the time it takes me to get the kitchen and upstairs living area ready for a showing. I usually only have to make a few minor tweaks to the room when they’re done. As a bonus, that also means they are not creating new messes while we are working to clean up the existing ones. Prepping for a home showing has really become a family affair.

The True Secret To Keeping Your Home Show Ready

There isn’t one. Or, if there is a secret, we still haven’t figured it out.

We were still very careful about not making any kind of messes that couldn’t be cleaned up rather quickly. No over-the-top art projects or massive closet clean outs.

But other than that, I gave up trying to stay on top of everything all the time.

We didn’t place our lives on hold to keep the home show ready. We didn’t stop cooking or eat out all the time. We didn’t keep everyone out of the house. We just lived our lives and when it came time for a showing, we all pitched in and made it happen.

My original plan for showing the house involved going in the girls’ room each morning to make their beds and put all their stuffed animals away. I quickly realized for my own sanity, I could probably just wait until we got the call for a showing before doing some of these tasks. Another example? I planned to dry mop the dining room after each meal. Nope, that didn’t happen either. I just followed my normal routine of once per day, and then right before a showing.

On second thought, there was one real secret to our show-ready success: Hubs. I never would have been able to make the house as clean as we did without his hard work.

The first few showings I did alone with the kids. Then we started getting more weekend showings, which he was around for. And once he started working from home, I really had a lot more help.

Once we receive a call for a showing, I usually tackle all the straightening, putting things away, and staging, while he tackles the cleaning.

If “needed”, I will turn on a show to keep my 17-mo-old entertained while we are cleaning. Yes, I know that’s not advisable for children that age. But, you gotta’ do what you gotta’ do.

Have a Show Ready Home Prep Plan

You need to think through what you will do to clean and maintain the house throughout the week and what you will do to get ready for each and every showing.

I created a document on my computer and labeled it “Before Each Showing.” This cheat sheet spells out what needs to be done in each room before a showing. While I didn’t keep strictly to this list, it was a helpful jumping off point. Here’s a sample from my cheat sheet:

Master Bath

• Take everything off counters & wipe down
• Replace bath towels with show towels

Master Closet

• Open window blinds

Laundry Room

• Make sure no dirty clothes are sitting in the laundry room sink

Kids Bath

• Clear everything off counters & wipe down
• Store all bath toys under sink

Nursery

• Open curtains to let natural light in (I have blackout curtains in there)

As I mentioned in part one of this series, How Not to Sell Your Home, my original plan for having the house on the market involved hiring a cleaning company to help me stay on top of the general cleaning. We did manage to get one deep clean in before things changed. But once the shelter in place order was established, the company I hired temporarily suspended operations.

My back-up plan involved utilizing evenings after the kids were in bed or nap times to clean and get the house ready for a showing.

For our first few showings, we received plenty of notice. I did the bulk of the cleaning the night before, put everything away and tidied up during nap time, and then shuffled the kids outside after nap time so they couldn’t destroy anything until it was time to leave the house for the showing.

Should you have a 24-hour notice policy?

Some people advocate for having some kind of notice policy. I decided to take things on a case by case basis. Fortunately, we never had anyone show up at our front door and ask to see the house. My number one request of every agent I spoke with is that they try to avoid scheduling a showing between 12pm-2pm. I really didn’t want to have to deal with missed nap times and cranky kiddos.

Every agent was able to honor this request. Most agents tried to contact me the day prior to schedule a showing. The shortest notice we had was one hour. That one kind of pushed the limits of what we could do, but in the end I’m glad I wasn’t a stickler for the 24-hour notice.

The Tools For Show Ready Home Success

When I say clean the house, I’m not talking about an intensive, deep cleaning, but rather a quick wipe down of all visible surfaces. We had a few cleaning supplies that made this process go very smoothly.

Most of the items I’ll share below are Norwex products. When I do a deeper clean, I still swear by my Thieves cleaner. But the rest of the time you will find me using Norwex microfiber towels. I’m not a consultant, but these products have helped us get the house ready for each showing.

I love these towels because they use only water to clean almost every surface and it’s so much better for the environment than all the paper towels we were using previously. I just toss the dirty towels in the washing machine when and they are good to go again. Here’s a video that explains how the Norwex towels work. 

Kitchen Counters

Once all the surfaces are cleared off, I wipe everything down with a Norwex kitchen cloth. I used to use paper towels, but the towels left a lot more streaks than the kitchen cloths.

Bathroom Surfaces

In the bathroom, we use the Norwex enviro cloth to wipe down all the surfaces.

Windows, Mirrors, Glass Doors

We also use the enviro cloth on all the mirrors and windows and then follow it with the Norwex window cloth. This leaves the windows much less streaky than drying with a paper towel. We have a lot of practice with this, because it takes only a few minutes after cleaning for the sliding doors to be covered in toddler handprints again. Such is life.

General Dusting

We use the Norwex dusting mitt to do a quick wipe down of wood surfaces

Engineered Wood Floors

What we do depends on how dirty the floors are, especially in the breakfast nook where we eat all of our meals. I first do a quick dry mop using my Norwex mop with the chenille dry mop pad. I didn’t think I would love this mop as much as I have. I won it from hosting a Norwex party a while back, but it has really shined in this season and with these floors.

If my floors are really dirty or haven’t been wet mopped in a while, I will go over them with my Haan steam mop. I’ve had this mop for a several years and apparently they don’t make it any more. I’m linking a similar product on Amazon so you can see what I’m talking about.

If my floors aren’t that dirty, I simply replace the dry mop pad with the wet mop pad on my Norwex mop and go over the floors again. I’m amazed at how quickly the Norwex wet mop pad has more floors looking so much better using only a little bit of water and some elbow grease.

Carpets

I saved the discussion on carpets for last because this is literally the last thing that happens before we leave the house. Hubs usually vacuums his way out and he’s a stickler for making sure no one walks on the carpets once they’re vacuumed. He has this system where he likes to walk back in our home after a showing and see how many tracks are visible in the carpet. It’s usually a good indicator that someone either spent a long time looking at a particular area, or that they weren’t really that interested and walked through the place quickly. He could also tell which rooms they dwelled in, and which ones they walked right by.

For the carpets, we use our Dyson V8 Absolute, a cordless vacuum. This vacuum has been amazing, especially in this season of constant vacuuming all over the house! I was a little worried when we first bought the vacuum a few years back that we wouldn’t be able to vacuum the entire house without having to stop and recharge the battery, but thankfully the battery is pretty good. Unless the floors are really dirty, I can make it through the whole house (about 3200 sq ft) for a spot vacuum before I have to hang it back on the wall for a recharge. It is so much easier and faster than trying to plug a vacuum cord into the wall, vacuum one section and then find a new outlet in a different room.

Note: We have a slightly older Dyson model, so I’m also linking the newer model, the Dyson V11 Torque Drive.

Show Ready Home: Before You Leave The House

There are a few last things you want to consider before a showing:

Check for any odors

Especially if you have pets, you might need to have someone else walk through your home and let you know if they can smell anything. Originally, I had planned to have a diffuser going with some kind of warm scent wafting through the house. I ended up not getting around to that and just settled for making sure there weren’t any specific odors in the house. If I knew we had a showing that afternoon, I didn’t cook anything that would leave a strong odor. I also made sure the diaper pail wasn’t too strong in the nursery.

Check the temperature of the rooms in your house

Is it too hot? Too cold? Since our house was on the market from March -May this was especially important for us to remember. Some days the outside temp never got out of the 50s. Other days we reached the 80s. There were a couple of showings where we personally wouldn’t have turned on the AC, but we didn’t want the family viewing the house to feel too warm, so we went ahead and turned it on.

Let in as much natural light as possible

Houses with natural light feel warmer, more open, and more inviting. If you usually have the blinds closed or curtains drawn, open them up to let in as much natural light as possible.

Turn on all the lights

Beyond just natural light, you want as much light in your house as possible. It makes the space feel larger and it will help showcase your home’s features. Turn on not only wall switches, but table and floor lamps as well. This helps set the mood for the house. Besides, buyers tend to have a much more positive reaction when homes are light and bright. Plus, they won’t need to fumble around trying to figure out which switch goes with which light!

I’d also recommend leaving closet doors slightly ajar so a buyer can peek inside and check out the storage space. I did this to minimize the number of surfaces that people were touching in my home, but it’s a good general rule to follow anyways.

Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

You won’t always have time to get everything looking perfect. When you’re crunched for time, focus on the areas that matter most.

According to the National Association of Realtors 2019 survey, the top three rooms to stage are the living room, kitchen and master bedroom. These are the rooms I’d prioritize having clean as well. In our experience, while most people viewed the other bedrooms by standing in the doorway, they were more curious about and actually took the time to walk around the master bedroom.

If you’re trying to sell a house with young kids, at some point they are probably going to do something that hinders your progress, rather than helps it.

And at the end of the day, it’s just a showing. If someone is thrown off by a few things out in the playroom, it’s probably not the right buyer for a “family house”.

If you’ve done the prep work, no one little thing is probably going to throw off the entire “feng shui” of your home. If it’s meant to be, it will be. Most people can overlook a few blemishes or distractions. Ultimately, we are just trying to limit the number of reasons someone has to walk away. Buying a home is the single largest investment most Americans ever make. We can help buyers avoid any doubt or concern.

Embrace The Home Selling Journey

Almost none of the families that walked through our home made an offer. It can be discouraging, especially when you love your home and you want others to love it as much as you do. Most of the time, it’s just not the right time for them. Most of the reasons that people didn’t love our home were things outside of our control – primarily the slope of our backyard or the size of the bedrooms.

So accept that there will be people that don’t like your home. And that not everything will look perfect 100% of the time.

Give yourself grace with each showing and know that you did the best you could.

Because all it takes is one family that says yes to the home.

And finally, buckle up for the crazy journey that is selling a home with young kids. May the odds be every in your favor!