Please tell me how to sell a house that's inhabited by 3 small, messy children!

[Celery]

We need to move, there are 5 of us - two adults, 3 small children - living in a small 3 bed semi. It's cluttered, it's a bit grubby and battered - finger prints and pen marks on the walls etc - and the children create mess faster than I can clear it up. Please tell me how I can sell my house whilst it's still being inhabited by us!

Agree with HG. We have 3 and 5 yr old dcs and have just sold our house - I was soooo dreading the whole process (I am not at all naturally tidy) but it was much less painful than I feared. We hired storage and got rid of excess stuff, then basically concentrated on exposing as much floor space as possible by tidying up. Good idea to have places you can 'hide' some of the toys temporarily (although you'd be surprised how relatively tidy you can make a room look just by piling all the toys - neatly - in one corner close together). We mainly got viewings done while we were out at work (ours were spread out in dribs and drabs, not really viable to have an open day), or one of us would take the kids out for a walk, or failing that, I would just park them in front of the telly.
We didn't bother with fresh decorating - much too much effort to face - and the house is definitely shabby - but we asked for a fair price and got it within a month.
Good luck

Thank you everyone - this thread is making me feel SO much better!

I used to hurl everything into the car before viewers came round - high chair, trikes, anything making the floor feel cluttered - all stacked up in the car!

I remember Andrew thingy, that house-hunter bloke on C4, saying that he doesn't worry too much about "child clutter", as your target market will be families with small children who want to know there is space for THEIR kids' clutter.

If that's any hlp.

We put loads of stuff into storage (packed into labelled boxes then when we moved the removal van picked it up from storage and took it straight to new house).
Also were planning on the 'open house' style viewing - our estate agent marketed the house in the paper etc with 'coming to the market soon' written on it. We had made a plan for an open viewing in a fortnight's time (so we could take the kids out for a day trip and leave clean house for viewers) but agents found a chain-free buyer who we 'allowed' to view early (but not child-free). They were so worried about what would happen if we had the open house that they offered the asking price on the spot.
(Oh, we also decorated using washable paint so we could wipe off hand prints etc..but had been doing that room by room for a year or so before the sale).

I thought that a little children's clutter wouldn't matter since we expected to sell to a family, but one estate agent we showed round (before we de-cluttered) was exceedingly rude about the kid's stuff and couldn't even value the house because of it. (He didn't get our business!). And our buyers turned out to be a couple with no kids!

Message withdrawn

We got our house valued about 2 months ago - (we bought it to do it up, and had done all the hard work, but not decorated etc).

2 estate agents gave us the same price

I then gave them a list of all the work we were planning to do,

decorating throughout
woodwork,
new carpets upstairs (had laid wooden floor downstairs already)
new doors on utiltiy room cupboards
tidy garden up
etc

and both estates agents gave a valueation of 15k more..

It probably cost us 5k

When all the work was done (well DH still glossing) the estate agent has just valued this house 20k more than before,,

So definatley worth it for us to finish the house off and make it look like new..

We also really decluttered.. (that killed me)

And yes it was bloody hard work, and has stressed us out (wished we had paid for more to be done for us)..

we will have to wait to see how long it takes to sell, been on the market just 1 week, had 2 viewings, and have 2 more this weekend...

So if you think you can make more money I would do it, if not then I wouldn't bother too much..

We sold our last 2 houses unfinished and we think we lost out financially and as we are moving somewhere most expensive that here we need every penny we can get for the house!

Have it reasonably clean and tidy, smelling fresh, not of animals of fish if possible (ie do not cook kippers the night before a viewing!). Personally, I would do a quick emulsion job on the worst hit areas (staircase and sitting room in my house!). It doesn't take long with a roller and makes a big impression. Kitchen should be as sparkling as possible with small kids, fresh flowers, tidy garden, nicely made beds and clean bathrooms. De-clutter as much as possible and let natural light in wherever you can. No problem re toys but try to contain them into boxes. Actually, I would put all my kids toys upstairs in their rooms and keep the downstairs as clutter free as possible. You still give the impression of a family house, but make the place seem bigger.

I'm never sure about all the telly advice about making it an 'impersonal space' though, by removing family photos, kids' paintings in the kitchen etc. Does anyone think this makes a difference?

animals OR fish!!

If I had my time again with our house i'd actually rent somewhere for three months, move all the crap out and leave beds and chairs the basics that show what each room is for and that's that.
It actually cost us £65k by not doing this, we sold our house to an estate agent who painted it and sold it 3 months later for £65k more.
So learn from my mistakes.

If it makes you feel any better I bought just such a house. It was a terrible mess, crayon up the walls but I loved it anyway. We sold our family home last year and the estate agent said dont bother doing too much its a family house and everyone can see that. We sold it in 2 weeks. i used to send DH and the kids out for the morning when we had viewings and then id run round shoving the mess under the beds and it cupboards.