What are you expectations when buying a house???

[hey mommy]

When you are looking at a house, what do you expect it to look like when people are living in it? I'm trying to figure out what I need to be working on in my house.. I know the closets need to be cleaned/organized, the microwave needs to be/stay clean. I know the bathrooms need to be clean all the time..

But, would it bother you if there were say, 4-5 small dishes next to the sink? Or dishes in the dishwasher? Or legos on the coffee table(a few, not a lot)?

We make sure all the rooms are vacuumed, dusted and picked up, all beds made, toys picked up, dishes done, counters cleaned off as much as possible.. Kitchen table is cleaned off. The kitchen floor is clean.

DH thinks it needs to be 'model home clean". I think that's crazy seeing as 3 people live here, one of which is a 6 year old boy.

I'm working my tail off trying to keep up w/this place and it's driving me nuts that I can't relax about it for one minute....

[Forsynthianicki]

Obviously a clean house shows better than a dirty one but that doesn't seem to be the issue here. IMO I like to see that a family lives there and loves thier house. A cereal bowl in the sink, a few legos on the coffee table, or even a pair of shoes by the door don't seem like a big deal to me. When we were house shopping we saw homes in all stages of clean and some even filthy :jawdrop. I was always looking more at the big picture kind of things, neighborhood, schools, overall condition of the home, roof, plumbing, ect. Don't stress it sounds like you are doing fine :yes.

[HomeWithMyBabies]

IMO, the less extra stuff there is in the house the better it looked. I'm not talking just about clutter, but for example I have a filing cabinet in my living room that I would probably store because it takes up space and doesn't add anything to the appeal of the house. A few toys wouldn't bother me.

I'd take some personal stuff down, too. One house we looked at had a giant poster of a marijuana plant, and it was just hard to imagine that house as "ours" after that. :giggle

[2sunshines]

The thing is, *I* can see beyond a few things laying around, but a lot of people can't. Some people are VERY unimaginative when it comes to looking at a house and deciding if they can make it their own.

So honestly it depends on how quickly or desperately you want to sell the house.

I know some people selling choose to rent a storage place and dramatically minimize almost everything in their house. Less stuff makes the house look bigger. But I know that's HARD to do while living in it.

:hug I'm sure you're doing fine. :yes

[WI Mama05]

I dont think things like a few toys around or a couple dirty dishes in the sink ever bothered me. :shrug What *DID* get me, though, was a room FULL of toys, too much clutter/furniture so that I couldn't really tell how big the rooms were, lots of stuff on the walls/fridge.....I'm very visual so it was very overwhelming.

And, yeah, unmade beds were a turnoff, but that's something I can't judge cuz we don't usually make ours anyway :P~ :O.

[WI Mama05]

So honestly it depends on how quickly or desperately you want to sell the house.

I know some people selling choose to rent a storage place and dramatically minimize almost everything in their house. Less stuff makes the house look bigger. But I know that's HARD to do while living in it.



:yes We had to sell QUICKLY and we did rent a storage until and moved probably 60% of our belongings out! We lived off of the basic essentials for a few weeks until it sold and it actually was a LOT easier to keep clean without the excess! :giggle It opened up the closets and spare rooms a lot so that people could get a good look at the storage available and I think generally made it more appealing, like people could visualize themselves there, KWIM?

That being said, it doesn't HAVE to happen in order to sell, the right buyer will come either way IMO. :hug2

[hey mommy]

Yeah, we do have a lot of stuff that can be packed up and stored or even just given away.. I need to go through the closets.. Maybe I'll do that this week. We have 3 closets stuffed full of things that can be moved, or packed away or given away.

We would like to sell it quickly.. It's been on the market for 2 weeks and a couple of days and we've only had about 3 days where people did NOT look at it.. No offers though.. Hopefully that will come very soon..

[2sunshines]

Selling a house is stressful. I don't look forward to the day. :nails

I think minimizing stuff in your house will do a lot to help sell it. :yes

:pray4

[Katiebug]

Selling a house is stressful. I don't look forward to the day. :nails

I think minimizing stuff in your house will do a lot to help sell it. :yes

:pray4


:yes

[DoulaClara]

Selling was fun for me, but I loved staging our house in Bolingbrook. Until the Chicagoland housing market fell through... (praise God that we found a buyer though!) I do think that with a baby it would have been harder.

When we bought both times, we probably looked at over a hundred homes total. A few were so ridiculous- one person must have robbed a Pier 1. Chargers, dinner plates, all kinds of place settings and flowers and bark and branches all over a table, with a curtain off to the side and fake apples. Other houses looked like the agent never bothered to tell people we were coming in. Those houses we got out of quickly- it just felt like we shouldn't be there (even though we were supposed to be!) and it wouldn't have mattered anyway, as we couldn't imagine our stuff amidst the current clutter.

My advice- for sure pack up all non-essentials and put them somewhere else. Perhaps a friend or church member or family member has a closet worth of space for a few totes of stuff. If worse came to worse, and our realtor called and said that someone asked if they could come by in half an hour, I'd grab any clutter and stick it in a basket and hide the basket under the kitchen sink or bed. Dishes were not allowed to accumulate- it was tough, but we really tried to stay on top of the staging. It doesn't have to look like a model home, but it really should look as basic and clutter-free as possible. I'm the type of buyer who has to look inside of things that come with the house (oven, fridge) and I do not go under beds or anything like that. People will be looking in closets and storage spaces.

HTH! Let me know if I can say more- I have tons of thoughts on this (and loads of stories of looking for houses, and the things we saw...)

[BHope]

Other houses looked like the agent never bothered to tell people we were coming in. Those houses we got out of quickly- it just felt like we shouldn't be there (even though we were supposed to be!) and it wouldn't have mattered anyway, as we couldn't imagine our stuff amidst the current clutter.
This is a really important observation. People need to be able to immediately visualize themselves in your home. The houses we felt the most uncomfortable in where the ones that felt like someone else's home. Lot's of family pictures... things like that.

[hey mommy]

We have 4-5 pictures up on the living room walls.. One is an 8x10 of C, one is a double pic. frame of my niece and nephew and the others are just sayings and stuff. We don't really have a lot of family pictures around. I didn't hang them up for this reason..

[MarynMunchkins]

I think that if your house is de-cluttered and de-personalized, than a few things that happen when you live there (dirty dishes, a few toys, dirty laundry in hampers) is no big deal. :)

[SansSouci]

I agree with the pps. And one more thing I think is worth emphasizing (since you're looking for what are the important things to do) - do try to empty your closets as much as possible.

When I was looking at houses and saw full closets, my immediate thought was "This house doesn't have enough room." (not enough storage space, not enough storing space, etc.) But when I saw half-full closets, or closets that just looked minimalistic and not-at-all-full, I thought that the house must be easy to live in and easy to keep myself organized.

So definitely clean out those closets!

When we sold our house, we rented a small storage space and put tons of stuff in there (the large toys that took up floor space, some weird furniture that wasn't needed, a bunch of rubbermaids, etc.).

When I needed to store something quickly when I got short notice for a house showing (ie: a dirty blender, etc.), I'd put them in the clothes dryer. Nobody is going to look there (if they are - too bad for them, b/c they're not getting the washer/dryer!), and it's a large enough space to stow quickly. You can also just throw the spare things into a basket and throw it in the car.

Oh, and I also kept one basket empty. Whenever we'd get "the call", I'd have the kids throw all their toys into that basket (the toys that were currently sprinkled throughout the room b/c they were playing with them) and we'd stow it in their closet.

BTW When my parents were selling their house, and my brother and I were in elementary school... my mom would charge us a quarter for every toy we left out at night (she'd put them in a box, and we'd have to buy them back). I guess that encouraged us to keep our toys cleaned up all the time.

[hey mommy]

I'd love to rent a storage unit, but Mr. Frugal(aka, dh) won't. He's a when it comes to things like this....

[2sunshines]

I'd love to rent a storage unit, but Mr. Frugal(aka, dh) won't.

Can you appeal to his frugal side that renting a storage space may bring in more money for the house or at least will sell the house quicker which will save you money in mortage payments?

[hey mommy]

Nope

[WI Mama05]

I'd love to rent a storage unit, but Mr. Frugal(aka, dh) won't. He's a person when it comes to things like this....


Do you have a garage? Even getting things out of the house and into the garage can help. People understand that you are in the process of moving. they want to be able to visualize themselves in the *house*, not necessarily the garage (unless it's a specialty garage - workshop, etc.) :hug2

[hey mommy]

Yeah, we have a 3 car garage.. And it's packed already, unless I stop parking in it... Which I guess I may have to do.. :(