Home Swoon Home: surviving showings

Showings are necessary evils when selling a home. You want as many of these as possible to get tons of traffic (and potential offers!) in your house.  Living through showings can be a challenge.  Last week, I blogged about the importance of staging your home when trying to sell.  Once your home is staged properly, you need to keep it that way.  Sounds easy enough, but keeping the home spotless and perfect on a day-to-day basis can create quite a headache.

Some tips for surviving showings include:

* Keep the home up on a daily basis.  Assume you will get buyers in your house with no notice, so clean it and tidy it up each day before you head out the door.  Remember this is temporary.

* Make a checklist.  Both Jamie and I are huge fans of of checklists and checking things off of them.  Making a list of everything you need to do each day before you leave the house will help you remember it all and give you a small sense of control in a situation in which you have very little control.

* Keep a basket in your main living area.  If you run out of time to put things away where they belong, toss your stuff in the basket and hide it in the trunk of your car.

* Keep a basket of cleaning supplies on hand and use them each day.  I have my vinegar-based cleaner, paper towels, a few regular towels, comet and some daily shower cleaner. Having everything all together in one place saves time and stress.

* Figure out where you will spend your time during the showings: ask a friend or relative if you can crash with her.  Go to the mall. Stay later at work.  Your realtor should be able to advise about how long to figure the showings will be.

* Finally, be grateful! The second I start to get weary of the cleaning and prepping, I remind myself that it is all for good: selling the house and getting into the next one.

Got any tips that I missed? Please do share!

See you swoon,