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Have you sold your house with a newborn?
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Anonymous
| our house is currently on the market and I am due w #2 Oct 1. We had hoped to move before she arrives but looks like that will not be the case as our house is still on the market. I'm thinking that once she arrives it will be impossible to show the house for the few couple of weeks, at least. we are also getting all the baby "stuff" our of storage soon (bouncy seat, swing, etc) that will add clutter to the house but we have to have these things for the initial phase. Any suggestions? do you take the house off the market for a short time? |
aprilmayjune
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| Is it possible to condense as much baby stuff as possible to the nursery for the time being? Because if you can put a lot of things there, than it may not clutter your house that much,at least not at first.. If it were me, I personally don't think I'd take the house off of the market. |
Anonymous
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We listed our house when #2 was eight weeks old. (And not to scare you, but it finally went under contract at 6.5 months.) So we also had to purge baby stuff and big kid stuff.
Lesson 1: Learn from our mistake: Do not pack the bar. Lesson 2: Selling a house with a nonscheduled, nap-anywhere newborn is a lot easier than juggling showings around naptimes. And since you will be out and about much earlier than you were with #1 anyway, might as well keep the place on the market. Lesson 3: Limit the toys. Then limit them again. Then spend your days playing elsewhere, because you'll still hate having to constantly pick them up. Lesson 4: Find a real home for everything and put it back where it belongs immediately after using it. Learn to clean as you go. Lesson 5: Baby wipes repair a multitude of sins: wall scuffs, sink crud, dusty furniture, etc. This is no time to be a good environmentalist -- embrace the disposable. Lesson 6: Have a "holy shit" drawer where you store things you need but can't leave out (bills, school forms, etc.) and where you can chuck homeless items when an agent calls from the sidewalk outside. Lesson 7: Seriously. Do not pack the bar. |
Anonymous
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21:11 again.
If you haven't already. get to packing. You think you're tired and overwhelmed now, but you have no idea how hard it is to pack with two kids, one of whom is either nursing or sleeping in arms. If I could go back and do my third trimester again, it would involve a lot more cardboard. But for the love of God, keep the bar accessible. |
Anonymous
No. Most of the time, they do not convey 
Seriously, though. I think the toddler is the toughest part of it. The nap times, toys on the floor, etc. That's really the hardest part. If you can handle that, a baby in a bucket seat should not be bad. Try to limit the baby gear to what is really important at the time. |
Anonymous
Leave the house on the market. It's easier to sell with a baby than older kids or teens. Baby is stationary and not going to make a mess. |
aprilmayjune
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I'm not selling my home and I have two of these in my kitchen! |
Anonymous
| We tried, but managed only to sell the house. So, had to keep the newborn |
Anonymous
You don't "have to have these things". Plenty of people make due without them. You just need to decide what's more important to you: a cluttered home or a sold home. The PP gave you some really good advice. When we had a newborn plus a house on the market, out baby slept in a moses basket and I wore him all of the time. It was a big change from baby #1 who had a swing and a bouncer and a crib, but totally worth it in my opinion, as our home sold relatively quickly and I think that our home's appearance had a lot to do with it. |
Anonymous
| we've sold ours but we kept the baby. |
Anonymous
| Just a word of encouragement here - we recently bought our home, after moving from out of state, and I have to say, we really cut people some slack when they had kid stuff around the house. All we felt was sympathy that they were trying to do this with kids in the house! So try to keep it tidy, but don't kill yourself! |
Anonymous
| yup, we did it. not that bad b/c he slept a lot. we kept one closet mostly empty and threw all the baby gear in there when we needed to leave for a showing. |
Anonymous
| Before you take everything baby out of your house. Ask yourself: who might the typical buyer be for this house? A family, a young couple w/o kids, a retired couple? When we were selling a 2 bedroom row house on capital hill because it just did not work for us with a kid but was are great house when we were newly-weds with lots of single friends and we had lots ot parties there! We realised that the person who would buy our house was either an older person that wanted a home office or a younger couple like we were when we bought it (and the couple before us!) We got rid of all the baby stuff and staged it very much as a grown up house (with a wine rack on the kitchen counter instead of a bottle warmer, pot pourri in the bathroom instead of the giant rubber ducky)! On the other hand, we were looking to buy a family home so if the basement was set up as a playroom we could see ourselves fitting right in there! I would just keep the toys and the baby stuff out of the living and dining room on the main floor but am totally fine with viewing it as a family home in the rest of the spaces. It may even have got me more interested to see the possibility of lots of toys all tidy and organised as I would think - this house can work for us. |
Anonymous
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Hey, our nursery is THE room that sold our house. The buyers were newly expecting, and our TINY TINY nursery apparently was so charming to the expectant mom that she burst into tears when she walked into the room. So I agree with 10:53: consider who may be buying.
And do your best to empty out a closet somewhere that you can fill with empty bins that you can use to quickly shove "messy" baby stuff/kid stuff out of the way in the event you have an unexpected showing. Just get good at doing a solid clean-up sweep every night (and not letting it get out of hand during the day) and I think you'll be able to do it. Also agree with the other PPs...sell the house, keep the baby. 
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Anonymous
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We had our place on the market from 1 month pre-baby to 3 months after, then moved anyway leaving it vacant. Finally took it off the market after 6 months and got tenants.
Anyway, I agree with what the PPs said. We rented a commercial storage unit and de-cluttered as much as possible, even storing all of the baby clothes bigger than 3 month size. The baby slept in a co-sleeper, we had a bouncer seat in the living room, changing pad that could go under the bed when not in use (no changing table), and no other real baby furniture. (One of the reasons we were moving is because we didn't have a spare room for a nursery.) Ask your agent to have people call ahead when they're coming, but be prepared to go for a walk with the baby at a moment's notice. We made a point of cleaning up every night before bed, and I'd make the bed and stash things upstairs before coming down with the baby in the morning. The worst thing was that agents somehow thought our house was vacant and more than one agent/prospective buyer walked into our house completely unannounced, without even knocking, at least once when I was nursing (and still shy about it). I'd hear then fumbling with the lockbox and try to un-latch and cover up but it was so awkward for both me and the potential buyers that both times that happened they only stayed 5 minutes before apologizing and leaving. Fiarly manageable with an infant, but I'm afraid the toddler will make it more complicated. |