Buying a new home is a big decision when you are a parent. There are a lot more factors to consider than just square footage, layout, and selling price - you have to consider the quality of the school district that the house is zoned for, first and foremost. Does the house have a big enough yard for your little ones to run free and play, or is it close to city parks and recreation centers that will work as a substitute? Are there sidewalks for stroller walks and bike rides? If you aren’t 100% sure that your family is complete, does the home in question have enough bedrooms to accommodate a new addition? While your children are still very young, you may have to worry about lead paint in older homes. And this is just a small list of the things that parents have to think about when buying a home.
Not only can children really expand your list of necessary criteria in your dream home, but they can also make the homebuying process much more difficult. Browsing potential homes with your real estate agent often involves long hours of driving around in the car from place to place and wandering through one house after another. There’s the boredom factor to consider, and also the fact that you can’t focus fully on the size of the closets or the condition of the bathroom while you are worried about your toddler breaking a stranger’s knick-knacks. If it’s at all possible, leave the kiddos with grandparents or another babysitter while you are house-shopping.
On the other side of the coin, selling a house that contains children comes with extra built-in challenges as well. The biggest one, of course, is keeping your home clean and ship-shape during the selling process when, at any time, you could receive a call that a prospective buyer is coming for a walkthrough in half an hour. Staging your home, which involves decluttering and packing away excess personal items to make your home more appealing for sale, is usually mutually exclusive with toys being scattered everywhere. What do you leave out, and what do you pack away? And how do you keep the kids’ mess contained to enough of a degree that you can clean it up thoroughly and quickly? These are questions that all families selling a home have to face.
One thing is for certain: the presence of children makes it a good deal tougher to either buy or sell a home. Patience and a good sense of humor will go far in making your process successful, along with the help of a skilled and knowledgeable real estate agent.
