Now that summer is here, home sellers are having to work around how they are able to accommodate showings while having their kids home from school. As if you didn’t have enough on your plate with having your house showing at its best, now you have to monitor sticky hands and rounding up the kids for viewings.
As a father of two young children myself, I don’t know how I would be able to manage staying on top of everything. The most difficult part would be having to leave the house for viewings. It would be hard to do even at the best of times. Throw in viewings during nap time, lunch time or after the kids have been taken in and out of the house several times already and I would likely have a meltdown.
I have already seen this several times when taking out my buyers and I feel a whole lot of sympathy for the parents who are accommodating viewings with young children. As much sympathy as I have, I cannot understate the negative impact that being present during viewings has on the sale of your home.
In light of this, I would like to share a few things that can help with ensuring buyers are able to view your home and you are not going crazy trying to get your kids out of the house:
1. Ask for 30 minute viewing times
Most viewings are scheduled for an hour but agents are typically only in your house for 10 minutes. This means you are sitting in your car or keeping your kids entertained for 50 minutes, where they could otherwise have been at home. By having viewings only for 30 minutes, you will reduce the time you are out of your house and agents will likely try and view your home at the start of the viewing time, not the end.
2. Ask for longer notice for viewings so you can be prepared
You can note that you would like as much notice as you see fit for viewings. For instance, if you would like to get four hours notice for any viewing, you can do this and agents would accommodate around that. This would give you enough time to prepare your home and get the kids geared up to leave.
3. Ask for viewings only between certain hours of the day
You can request viewings between whatever hours you would like. If you don’t want nap time or lunch interrupted, your agent is able to say in the listing remarks “No viewings between 11am-2pm”.
4. Be prepared to leave the house, but only leave once the agent arrives
It doesn’t make much sense for you to be leaving your house 20 minutes before an agent shows up. Adding to that, there will be times where an agent doesn’t show up for a viewing at all. This is only of the many things that will frustrate you when your home is for sale. Be prepared to leave, and when a car pulls up, get the kids ready and head out for the short time the viewing is actually occurring.
5. Have a few “Break Days”
Having a day or two a week where you aren’t worried about agents coming to view your home can give you the recharge you need to get through the rest of the week. In my experience, Wednesdays and Fridays seem to be the slowest days for buyers viewing homes so I would consider either one of those.
The height of viewing activity on your home is within the first 14 days. After that, you will have more of a cool down and would likely be able to manage the viewing requests as they come in without any difficulty.
All of the recommendations above are great options but always be aware that ideally, you want to have your home available as much as possible. Think of your home as a store that is open for business, the more restricted the hours are, the less potential customers you will get. As long as you are being reasonable, you shouldn’t have any issues in selling your home AND keeping your head from exploding in the process.
Happy Parenting!