Tips for Busy Parents to Keep Their Home Clean and Organized for Realtor Showings

When you’re busy parenting, working, and selling a home that you live in, you may be wondering how you’re supposed to keep the house looking clean and organized when you’re already stressed out and short on time. From last-minute real estate showings to regular messes in the kitchen and bathrooms, you may even feel that selling the home will be impossible unless you can somehow vacate the property.

While it’s true that selling your home leads to loads of stress—especially if you’re still living in it—there are a few things you can do to simplify the process of keeping your house clean, organized, and well-maintained between real estate showings. To discover a few time-saving tips that can help to keep your home looking spotless and market-ready, read on!

Hire a Professional Cleaner

According to Bankrate, things like dirt, grime, bad odors, and clutter are among the top red flags that turn off potential homebuyers. As such, it’s important to clean, declutter, and depersonalize the home as much as possible before it hits the housing market. Then, you need to do everything you can to keep the home looking clean and show-ready until closing day—or you may risk scaring off prospective buyers.

When you’re still living in the home you’re trying to sell, the idea of keeping the house clean, organized, and staged may seem impossible—especially if you have kids. However, this is where a professional cleaning service comes in. A professional house cleaner will keep your home in pristine condition between real estate showings, even when you don’t have the time to do it yourself.

Set Rules for Showings

Even if you hire a house cleaner to assist you until your home sells, you’ll take some of the stress out of selling your home if you make the property available for showings at designated times that work best for you and your family. It’s important to remain as flexible as possible or you could risk losing potential buyers, but setting a few rules for showings will take some stress out of living in the home you’re trying to sell.

During the week, for instance, you might aim to schedule showings on the days you know your home will be professionally cleaned. Saturday and Sunday showings are also ideal for families—as this gives you and your children the opportunity to leave for the weekend.

Create a Plan for Last-Minute Showings

Regardless of when you make your home available for showings, there may come a time when you’ll need to prep your home for a last-minute showing. To ensure that your home is looking clean and spotless for these last-minute showings, it’s important to have a plan in place that can be done in a short amount of time. Here’s what you should focus on:

• Picking up loose objects like magazines and toys and putting them away.
• Speed cleaning the kitchen and other high-traffic areas.
• Making sure the rooms are well-lit.
• Ensuring the closet doors and toilet lids are closed.
• Eliminating bad odors from the home.

Refer to Your Homeowner’s Association

If you live in a Homeowner’s Association (HOA), you’ll also need to determine whether the association requires you to meet any rules or guidelines when selling the townhome or condominium to a new owner. Be sure to reach out to your association’s property manager, like AR Management Company before you list your home.

Whether you’re selling an investment property, single-family house, or townhome, keeping a home clean and show-ready isn’t easy when the home is still being occupied. However, these tips will eliminate some of the stress you may be experiencing, while also keeping the home in excellent condition for your potential buyers.

This article was provided to us courtesy of parentingwithkris.com.