A home seller’s guide to showtime
In order to get the most out of prospective buyers who come knocking, start by moving out
You’ve made the decision to sell your house and now you have people walking through every inch of it. Here’s what you do. 1. Move out It’s usually less disruptive for clients with children and pets to temporarily move out when selling their home, says Shea Warrington with Real Estate Homeward in Toronto.
“I have four kids and it’s not easy to stay on top of toilet seats being down,” says Warrington. “Or worse, not being flushed!”
One Riverdale couple in the midst of listing their home plans to move their young family out of the house for two weeks while their home is staged, photographed and shown. “It’s so much easier to not be around, so the agent has free reign to book appointments as needed,” says Lindsay Fleming, the mother of two young girls. “It just makes life much easier when there’s little ones.”
Fleming says she’s actually tempted to book five days to Orlando and take her girls to Disney for part of that time. “It would be nice to get away after all this work of getting the house ready to list.”
Lindsay Wright of Wright Sisters Group with Re/ Max, couldn’t agree more. “Moving out is ideal,” says Wright, “and it’s also a great time to take a family vacation.” 2. Stop cooking If a family is staying in their home while they’re selling, Warrington suggests they don’t cook. “Ideally a house should smell fresh, clean and free of scents, including perfume, air fresheners or cooking odours.”
“If you have a hot property, you’re hoping for lots of action, which generally means evening showings,” she says. “So sometimes, it’s best to plan to eat out.”
And there’s another bonus to taking the family out for dinner, adds Warrington. “Not cooking, of course, also helps as far as mess in the kitchen.” 3. Board the pets Scent can also be an issue when it comes to pets, Warrington says. And pets can often complicate the showing process if a prospective buyer is allergic or nervous around animals.
“Showings can also be hard for pets,” says Wright. The real estate agent recommends using a doggie daycare and, when the weather is nice, putting the dog in the backyard during a last-minute showing is also an option.
But what if you’ve got a giant cage full of woodchip-scattering rabbits in your condo, like a client of David Fleming’s had? The Bosley Real Estate agent says his client found an accommodating friend to house the messy bunnies, giant cage and all, in their basement, until the condo sold. 4. Keep it kid-friendly For her clients with infants, Wright recommends restrictions on showing hours, such as no showings after 7 p.m., so there’s as little disruption as possible to baby routines. And for brand new listings, she also likes to invite the whole neighbourhood to an evening showing so everyone can come have a look at the house the same time.
Atip Warrington gives to her clients with kids is to keep a basket of toys that’s easily accessible when they’re home but also easy to tuck away in a hurry.
Fleming says quite a few of his clients with young families institute a party week for their kids, which leaves the house free for daily showings until 8:30 p.m.
Fleming says although one young boy soon tired of an outing every night, saying “Dad, I don’t like party week,” the fun routine does the trick with most kids, leaving them ready for bed once the family arrives home for the evening. 5. Don’t try to hide anything. Property management executive Sonya Buikema, who has been through the selling-and-showing cycle several times, says she wouldn’t recommend trying to hide anything dirty, anywhere. “People look everywhere,” she says. And even if they don’t, that last-minute solution could create other problems, like they did for her sister.
Several years ago, the harried Burlington mother of two teens shoved empty pizza boxes into the oven before an unexpected showing. Hours later, the boxes forgotten, she turned on the oven, and had to call the fire department when smoke filled the house.
“Luckily, in Toronto, houses sell fast, so the pain of keeping everything immaculate is short term, usually a week or less,” says Buikema, “which makes it bearable.” 6. Declutter Whether you hire professionals or self-edit your furniture and furnishings, like busy executive Buikema did, staging will do more than make your place more attractive to buyers, and easier to keep clean and tidy. When Buikema and her husband listed their home in Toronto’s Golden Triangle neighbourhood in East York in late 2012, the family packed up half of the house to get it ready for sale.
All non-essential items — including clothing, coats, shoes and furniture — were boxed up and placed in a storage facility.
“When it came time to pack up for moving, half the work was already done,” says the property management executive.