When putting your house in the market, the days of waiting make it difficult to feel at home in your own home. After all, you know you will have to vacate at any moment.
While managing to keep your house in pristine condition at all times, there are a lot of other worries that you need to juggle until you finally make that sale.
Trulia enumerates these 8 things that only home sellers will understand as well their respective solutions:
The last-minute-showing panic dance
When your house is on the market and your phone number is up for every possible buyer, then expect your phone to ring even in your most unprepared times. You would pick up the phone only to be told by the buyer's agent that they are 10 minutes on their way to your place.
At this moment, you scramble to each room fixing what you can and taking all the obvious clutter as you go. Of course you are doing that while furiously vacuuming at the same time. You also heard the dogs and the kids in the car, peel out of the driveway not realizing you have no shoes on and you left your purse (how are you going to pay for the drive-through?).
Solution: Make sure to keep the house ready for viewing at all times by doing the cleaning first thing in the morning. Should there be any surprise visit, it wouldn't take you too long to get the house ready if you have done most of the decluttering and cleaning this way.
The no-show rage
See above. Then imagine how furious you would feel after breaking a toe from scrambling to get your house ready for buyers who didn't even bother to enter your house.
Were they turned off by the landscaping? Did the neighbors scare them away? Were there police cars down the street because of what seems like a murder case?
Solution: Be realistic and take a good look at your house. Would you be lured by the landscaping if you were the buyer? Is your neighborhood looking safe? You could be shortchanging your own curb appeal.
The challenging buyer's agent
They are the type of agents who promise that an offer is on the way - and then take a whole week to submit the paperwork. They would make you cling by saying that their client's loan has been preapproved when they are in fact still looking for a lender.
Basically, these are agents who make the already complicated situation seem impossible, especially when you have been spending sleepless nights for that offer to finally come through.
Solution: Find the best agent and just trust them. There are also ways on how you can avoid deal-breakers as a seller; checkout this article.
Enduring the daily grind
Keeping your house in pristine shape at all times is not an easy feat. You need to make sure that the beds are made, the sink is clean and completely free of any debris (yuck), floors are dog-hair free, and above all else, you can't just tuck all the clutter in the closet as the buyers will definitely go around and open storage spaces from time to time.
Solution: It may seem like an impossible task now, but developing a cleaning routine that you can follow on a daily basis will help ensure that your house is in show-ready shape all the time.
Insecurity and insults
You may not know it yet, but putting your house on the market is almost like joining America's Next Top Model. You do your best to keep your house in tip-top shape only to get judged by small flaws like your choice of paint color and the arrangement of the furniture.
Solution: Don't take it personally. When a buyer likes a house, the teeny-tiny flaws shouldn't be that big of an issue.
Pet drama
Your phone just rang and it's a request for a showing. Good days! Only until your realize that your dog has silently made a deposit on the rug. Should you reschedule and miss out on this opportunity of finally making that sale?
Solution: Keep the pets off the house as much as possible. When they are inside, make sure they don't play around the carpet or the upholstered furniture. They are pets and you cannot really take it against them, but it will save you a lot of time and effort if they deposit on easy to clean surfaces like concrete.
The kid factor
Kids may find it difficult to keep their rooms in shape for viewings as well as make it easy for you to declutter especially if they aren't very pleased with the idea of moving out.
Solution: Involve the kids when doing your house hunting for your new place. This should motivate them to clean up if they really like the new house and keep them excited about the upcoming move.
Wait... do I really want to move?
It's a common seller's experience: You are having a relaxing rest in your decluttered, perfectly presented home and it hits you: "Oh! This place is looking really amazing. Why on Earth would I want to leave?"
Solution: You surely have a good reason for why you want to sell this house; it's why you have put it in the market, remember? As you think, just recall how your house looks like when everybody's stuff is everywhere and you haven't done the perfect staging that you have done for the house viewing? The image is a bit of a nightmare, right?
