11 Ways To Make Selling + Buying A Home Less Stressful. We are currently in this process, so I thought I’d share my ideas for making it just a little bit easier and less stressful on you and your family!
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Selling your house and buying a new one is so easy. It’s a piece of cake! I wish I could move every week!
Says no one ever.
We have been in the process of selling our home of three years and buying a bigger piece of land. And lemme tell ya from experience. It is no piece of cake. Far from it.
This has been the biggest uncomfortable growing experience I’ve had to go through in a long time. Like since our first baby was born and I had to learn how to be a mom while struggling with baby blues.
Let’s just say I’m so thankful that it is almost over!
But during this last month or two (pregnancy brain, I literally have no idea how long this process has been so far), I have learned quite a few things. Things that I wish I would have known before we ever listed our house.
So hopefully some of you find these helpful and can implement them right away and save yourselves some sanity. Cause I didn’t figure out some of these things until weeks into the process, and I probably wouldn’t have so many grey hairs right now if I had gotten with the program faster.
11 Ways To Make Selling + Buying A Home Less Stressful
Hire a good realtor
I am not an outgoing or confrontational person, and I also wear my heart on my sleeve. I feel like if I tried to handle all the real estate negotiations myself it would end badly.
I’m the crazy lady who loudly announces “I love it!” in the middle of a showing in front of the seller’s agent. Yes that really happened. Don’t laugh.
But I am super blessed to have a killer real estate agent as a mother. Her name is Susanne Schmidt and she was a realtor back when we lived in AZ, and then she has been one for years now here in MT too. And man I wouldn’t have survived this process if she wasn’t helping us so much! Her personality is perfect for being a realtor, she is smart and tenacious, and she isn’t afraid of a good negotiation.
So that is super important! Find yourself a good agent that you can depend on to do more of the tough and complicated side of buying and selling a home.
Simplify things with your children
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
I can’t say it enough.
You are going to have so much more on your plate with keeping the house spotlessly clean for showings and having to have the kids gone all the time. So try to simplify and streamline everything you can.
One of the things I changed up was using disposable diapers during this whole process. I am a passionate cloth diapering mama. But I couldn’t handle washing cloth diapers every day for two kids while also having to have the house presentable. I would have had to take the dirty diapers with me in the car every time we left, and it just was too much. As soon as we listed our house I went out and bought a couple big boxes of disposable diapers, swallowed my stubbornness and pride, and resolved to just use those until we were moved.
I also did things like keep less toys downstairs so cleanup was faster and let go of certain routines like always insisting my daughter brushed her hair in the mornings. It is a short season of life where it is ok to let go a little bit and just keep things super simple.
Lower your expectations
Just assume all you will be able to do is keep the house clean and keep your family alive. Nothing more.
Especially with kids, keeping the house clean enough for showings constantly is quite the feat. I have a 2-year-old, a 1-year-old and I am 25 weeks pregnant with our 3rd, and kids just seem to emit dirt and crumbs magically all over the place. So I had to really lower my expectations of being able to make fancy meals, make homemade soaps and lotions like I usually do, do extra learning activities with the kids, how much business work I could accomplish, or even being able to make my coffee in the morning. I honestly went to a coffee stand for my morning latte quite a few times once we would leave for showings in the morning, instead of making one at home and getting the kitchen messy.
That goes for expectations about your family members as well. Everyone is under an extreme amount of stress during something like this. Your marriage might not do as well, your kids will be more grumpy and throw more temper tantrums. Just don’t expect everyone to be on their best behavior. You’ll set yourself up for more success if you can keep your expectations reasonable.
Keep up with your self-care
During this process don’t let your self-care slip. I know you’ll be a lot more busy and fatigued, and you might just feel like skipping your yoga or nightly bath.
But now, even more than usual, it is important to keep up as much of your routine as you can. Suddenly dropping your yoga when you have so much more stress in your life is going to really compound things and make it harder to cope well.
Believe me. Because I made this mistake. I had been super consistent with yoga the whole beginning of my pregnancy and then I stopped once we listed our house because I was too overwhelmed. I could tell a huge difference mentally, emotionally and physically. Looking back, I wish I would have made it more of a priority. Even if you need to download your workout and take your laptop to a park and do it while your kids run around. Just do it.
So take your evening shower, write in your journal, slather on your essential oils, and keep yourself cared for so you can care for your family.
Prepare freezer meals before you list
Man, I wish I had done this more. We had some soups in the freezer which were super helpful, but if I could do it again I would literally make meals for every dinner for an entire month or two.
We ended up eating a lot of scrambled eggs and smoothies for supper because I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be to keep the house clean. I couldn’t make normal dinners because it got the kitchen so messy, and I was trying to keep things as simple as possible.
As many freezer meals as you are able to make before-hand are going to be a life saver when you’re in the thick of it. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, desserts, anything and everything you have time for.
De-clutter and store
Before listing the house my sister-in-law helped me go through the house and re-arrange artwork and de-clutter some items. We took the makeshift desk, computer and TV out of the living room, put up some gallery walls with artwork, rearranged the couch and chairs, and moved some big pictures around.
One thing Laura said was to clear out items that were very “you”. Like my kombucha fermenting on the counter. Things that could distract people from looking at the actual house because of how strange the things inside the house were to them.
The second thing she said was to go for a look that was cute and attractive, but minimalist enough that the people could easily picture their own furniture and artwork in the home.
So keeping in mind those two tips, I went through the house and “staged” it. Clearing out everything extra. We ended up renting a storage unit and storing extra stuff there. I wanted it to look as big and open as possible, without looking empty. Not trying to be deceptive with how roomy the house was, but trying to leave plenty of space for people to use their own imaginations.
Not only is this a good idea for making your house more presentable for showings, but it also clears out extra junk that might make it harder to keep it clean and tidy. Having a more minimalist house and lifestyle during this process just naturally makes it so that there are less items to clutter the house.
Plan for activities during showings
During the showing process I kept telling Luke that we should just go live somewhere else until the house sold so that we weren’t there to mess the house up. It would have made it so much easier to just go rent a hotel room or something haha
But seriously, plan to take your kids out most of the day during this phase even if you don’t have showings back-to-back all day. If you have a showing at 10 and then you come home for a couple hours and then have another one at 12, you have to clean the house AGAIN, when you could have just stayed out.
To me it seemed easier to just have somewhere to go for the day. I spent most of the showing days at my mom’s. I brought a playpen for the baby to take naps and we just “lived” there for the day. That way we didn’t have a bunch of trips in and out of the house, buckling and un-buckling children in the car, tracking dirt in just to be at home for a short amount of time.
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Set up a system to make home showings easy
Whenever it was time to leave for a showing I had my highly sophisticated system that went into action. Just kidding, it was actually pretty simple.
I would do all the easier cleaning like tidying, washing dishes etc with the kids still running around the house. Then I’d take them out to the car, buckle them in, and get them set up with a book or activity while I came back in to do the more finicky cleaning. That’s when I would do the sweeping, straightening the rugs, setting the plants out (which I had to pick up when we were home so the babies didn’t eat them, yes that’s my life), starting the essential oil diffuser. Things that were more likely to frustrate everyone involved if the kids were trying to “help” me.
I also made myself a list of things to check before leaving the house. Here are some examples:
- Turn on all lights
- Lay down rugs
- Open interior doors
- Unlock front door
- Throw blankets and pillows
- Open blinds
- Make sure toilet is flushed (haha)
Then once I was sure everything was PERFECT I’d head out to the car where the kids were still contentedly playing and we would head out. Having this routine that I always did made my OCD tendencies calm down when we would leave the house. Worrying about if I remembered to turn the light on upstairs or not. Being able to do things in the same order every time and check it off the list helped a ton.
Stay in prayer a lot
This whole experience has brought our whole family closer to God. Not knowing if we would be able to find a new house, not knowing if we would be homeless and have to live with Luke’s parents for a time. Just so many unknowns. It brought us to our knees.
I feel like God sends us trials like this to sanctify us. To see if we will melt into a puddle of stress or if we can just put our trust in Him where it belongs. He sends us situations like this to grow us in our faith and in our walk with Him.
It is so important to remember during a phase of life like this, that no matter what happens, God fore-ordained it. It isn’t taking Him by surprise. He has our best interests in mind even if it doesn’t seem like the best thing to us.
So stay in prayer. Constantly. Throughout the day. It will help you more than you know.
Don’t get emotionally attached
I am the type of person who immediately gets attached to a house we go look at. I instantly start picturing where our furniture will go, imagining the kids playing in the living room or yard, seeing myself cooking in the kitchen, our animals out in the pasture. It is ridiculous.
Don’t do that.
Let’s just not. It makes it so much harder to think about it from a logical perspective. Not to mention the fact that your heart gets broken every time a deal doesn’t go through, after you’ve already attached yourself.
I (half-jokingly) told Luke that I almost need to not go look at the houses with him and I can only look at the listing pictures. Because it is just so hard for me to not picture our family in the house. It’s just instantly where my brain goes.
So as much as you possibly can, don’t get attached. One thing I started doing was every time I’d start picturing us in the house we wanted, I’d change the picture to us living in a trailer, or an apartment, and force my brain to stay there. It actually helped me out a lot, for some weird reason.
Have a lot of grace for yourself and your family
Y’all. Just give yourselves a lot of grace. A lot of understanding.
No one is going to be at their best, so we need to just be as forgiving as possible and try to get through this rough season of life. The kids will probably throw extra tantrums, get in more fights, make bigger messes. You and your spouse might snap at each other about stupid things. Then add pregnancy hormones on top of that and you’ve got yourself a real circus.
Just remember “its a phase”. That’s basically my mantra for life. It’s just a phase. It will pass. You’ll find a house and you’ll get settled in and get back to normal. And you’ll be so thankful you went through all this drama and grew from it in the long run!
I hope that all these ideas, my 11 ways to make selling + buying a home less stressful helped you! You can do this!
And blessings!
11 Ways To Make Selling + Buying A Home Less Stressful
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11 Ways To Make Selling + Buying A Home Less Stressful
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