Selling home but have a baby

What did you do as far as showings. Obviously we wont be able to leave the house every time we have a showing. and I would rather people not walk in her room. Is that terrible?

also she goes to sleep at 7...then what? What if I have a showing after that!
HELP!

Re: Selling home but have a baby

Honestly, in this economy, I'd make the house available...it'll be tough because you have an infant, but houses aren't selling as quickly as they used to..

If it were me and I was looking to buy a home, I'd want to see every square inch of a home before I bought it and would be turned off to being closed off to any part of the house/rooms..

GL!

Re: Selling home but have a baby

It will be an issue for any buyer if they cannot see a room in the house. Baby or not!

You could request no visit after 7pm. But you will have to make up time available on weekends or do an open house to give your house more exposure.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

Re: Selling home but have a baby

Edited b/c I think I misunderstood at first... Do you not want people in the room when she is sleeping or at any time?

Also, discuss your showing time concerns with your realtor so s/he can try to schedule showings before 7PM. I would still let someone come after 7 if that is the only time they can come, though. Some buyers get easily distracted. If their initial request isn't honored and rescheduled immediately, they don't often reschedule later, unless your house is their dream home based on the pictures. I would personally tell my realtor to immediately try to reschedule, but to call me and ask if it's the ONLY time the potential buyers can come.

If it helps, all of our showings have been before 7 PM and most have been during the day on the weekends.

Message edited 1/24/2011 12:23:59 PM.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

I went and saw a house with an infant and a sleeping 4 year old one night - The mother just asked that we be super quite - so my mom and realtor did not go into those rooms just me and DH.
I would say let them see the room and tell them about the sleeping baby - I am sure most people would be rspectful and just look at the room - if they like the house enough they may come back a second time to look when the baby is up

Re: Selling home but have a baby

We had times when we allowed showings-- not at nap time (with the exception of weekends when we could have Sash nap in the car), and not after 6 30PM.

We had plenty of showings and received multiple offers, and sold very quickly.

You can always set limitations, and if it's not working and hindering the amount of showings, just change it.

Good luck!

eta-- we also had a sign when people walked in "Kindly Remove Your Shoes", and another sign on Sasha's door that said, "PLease no shoes in the baby's room" in case they didn't take them off at the door.

When working this out, our realtor said people do it all the time and they understand... I walked in on showings occasionally and people always had their shoes off.

Message edited 1/24/2011 12:25:21 PM.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

Posted by bicosi

Honestly, in this economy, I'd make the house available...it'll be tough because you have an infant, but houses aren't selling as quickly as they used to..

If it were me and I was looking to buy a home, I'd want to see every square inch of a home before I bought it and would be turned off to being closed off to any part of the house/rooms..

GL!

Re: Selling home but have a baby

I left the house EVERY SINGLE TIME someone came. It was helll but I didn't want to be there. Also we only had 2 night time showings plus we go to bed LATE here so that wasnt an issue.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

Thanks everyone.

I guess I will have to see how it works best.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

I'll elaborate since I am still not sure if you just don't want people in your child's room perid or if you only don't want them in while the baby is sleeping.

If it's the latter, I will say that you should do everything in your power to NOT be home when your house is being shown, unless of course you are selling it FSBO. It's just uncomfortable for everyone, and as a buyer it was a real turnoff 99.9% of the time if the seller was present for the showing. If you MUST be home at that time, I would try to schedule showings for different times. If they can't be rescheduled, I would at least give buyers the heads up that the seller will be home at that time.

As for showing your child's room... You have to make the entire house available to buyers to see. That includes your child's room. If it's the unlikely scenario that your child is sleeping at that time and you are home, I would explain that to the buyers. If she's not sleeping and you're not there, I think it would be a huge turnff to potential buyers to say they can't go in the room and can only look in from the hallway. Buyers are buying the house - the whole thing. They should be able to see every room, closet, and built-in.

Buyers aren't going to handle your child's things or anything like that. They will likely walk in, look around, check out the closet size and any built-in units and then move on to the next room. It's not a big enough deal to risk alienating buyers by telling them they cannot go in that room.

You can ask that buyers and REAs remove their shoes if you are worried about them dragging dirt through the house.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

I can tell you that we went to see a co-op when we were first looking. The family had children and had one of them napping at the time we came to see the apartment. I understood even at the time that you don't mess with a kid's nap schedule, but she wouldn't even let us open the door and look in the room. I would have appreciated being asked to come at a different time if that were the case, because we did not consider buying that co-op for one hot second. How could we when we hadn't seen one of the bedrooms?

Message edited 1/24/2011 2:06:09 PM.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

When I put my house on the market I had a 2 yr old and a 4 month old. We listed it in March, so the weather was a little better than it is now.

I never packed up my girls and left the house. It would have been too much work to do that for a 10 minute showing (some weren't even that long). When the potential buyers would show up I would just step out into the backyard and when they would come out to see the yard I would go back inside. The only time I stayed in the house was if it was raining.

As far as night time went, I always just played it by ear. If they gave me enough notice I just kept my girls up a little later. But, I never showed the house past 7:30-8:00pm. I felt after 8:00pm is too late. If someone is that interested they will come back on the weekend or when they are available at an earlier time.

Also remember that your house could be a "filler". A realtor is taking someone out looking and throws your house in the mix as one to look at. This would annoy me especially if I was accommodating them at a time that wasn't good for me and out of fear of loosing a buyer. I would then get the feedback from my realtor saying they were looking for 1 1/2 baths or 4 bedrooms. I had 1 bath & 3 bedrooms...my house was just a filler.

I would take each phone call and appointment as it comes and do what you feel is right for you at the time.

Oh and every single realtor and person that came to look at my house always told me I didn't have to leave.

Good Luck!! Hopefully the selling process is painless and fast!

Re: Selling home but have a baby

We didn't have an infant, but 2 young children. We rarely turned down a showing, but if the kids were napping, we would just ask them to be quiet in their room. Most of the comments were thsat they thought he looked cute sleeping with his butt in the air.


We were almost always home (b/c DH WAH) If everyone was home, we would just all go into the playroom or outside.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

Thanks ladies!

Yea this is the second house we are going to be selling and we never left for showings even in our first sale.

And in all the houses we have looked at i would say 50% of the time if not more the owners were present.
thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

I would ask them to only schedule showings at certain times. Also, I feel like most realtors do not like to show properties at night because you can't get a great impression of a house in the dark. I know that we had to beg our realtor to let us see our house after dark because she was so reluctant to let us see it. And the house was empty!

Re: Selling home but have a baby

Re: Selling home but have a baby

As someone who is house hunting right now, I can tell you that we look at the majority of homes in the evenings. If the realtor asks if we can do a weekend, we will try to accommodate the request. If we can't, and the owner won't accommodate us, we just skip that house.

As far as bedrooms are concerned, the only thing I care about beyond the size of the room itself is the closet space. I will typically walk in and open the closet. Beyond that, I don't look at anything else. If the realtor told me I would be unable to see the closet because the owner didn't want me in the room, I would be taken aback by that.

My advice to you is that if you really want to sell your house, you have to make it available, especially in this market. Also, bear in mind that you don't want the buyer to perceive you as a potential problem with the sale. We went to a house where the owner had all these restrictions (I personally think he was trying to hide defects). I said to DH right there "This guy is going to be a giant PITA if we go to contract with him. I'm not doing this." And that was that.

As much as the idea of a stranger being in your DD's room is repulsive, just go with it and realize it won't be her room for much longer. Good luck!

Re: Selling home but have a baby

Unfortunately you really can't ask people to not go into your DD's room if you really want to sell the house. Not sure you could request no later showings - but I'm not sure if that will make it harder to sell and you might want to be a bit flexible. But that is the downside of selling when you still live in the house - I would remove anything you don't want people touching (you could put it in your car) but you can't keep people from going into a room.

Re: Selling home but have a baby

I'd let them at least quietly peek into the room, I'm sure they'd be respectful & quiet if they know your baby is sleeping.