MOMS OF REAL ESTATE: EP 2 What to do with your kids during showings? Selling your house and keeping your life under control while your house is up for sale, working from home, having kids at home - can be crazy and stressful in itself, this can be a juggling act for sure, like a three ring circus act . Today we are talking about a few ideas that we suggest to our clients when they've listed their homes for sale, have a showing or showings booked, working from home, have kids at home, often as realtors we are asked how to manage and handle showings while kids are at home. We are moms, We are Fulltime Realtors, We are moms in Real Estate. Two Rockstar Realtors here in Canada chatting about overall state of the market in each of their respective areas, what is market like today, challenges buyers/sellers maybe facing . Your hosts: Jennifer Foley, Real Estate Broker/ Realtor in Oshawa, Ontario (just 30 min east of Greater Toronto Area) & Faeine Grant, Personal Real Estate Corporation/Realtor from Abbotsford, BC ( outside Vancouver, BC) www.JenniferFoley.ca www.themodernrealtors.com Tips and tricks of the trade shared here. Subscribe to my you tube channel for weekly tips, every Friday at 1pm from Faeine and Jennifer Don't have time to watch a video, subscribe to our podcast.... Moms In Real Estate #momsofrealestate #sellinghomes #workingmoms #momsofyoutube #momsofinstagram #realtorlife #jenniferfoleyrealtor #bowmanville #oshawa #momlife #realtorlife #whitby
Faeine Grant:
... gray sweat pants from-
Jennifer Foley:
Your what? Your what?
Faeine Grant:
I'm in gray sweat pants from the waist down.
Jennifer Foley:
Oh, well I look like I'm in sweat pants from the waist up but that's because we're on Ontario lockdown here.
Faeine Grant:
Exactly. Yeah. That's what work looks like during COVID right?
Jennifer Foley:
Yeah. Working from home. Are you guys on lockdown too out there in BC?
Faeine Grant:
Not to the same degree, but definitely our office, we're not allowed to go work in our office and bring clients there or anything of that nature. So yeah. They're encouraging us all to stay home basically.
Jennifer Foley:
Yeah.
Faeine Grant:
As much as possible. I have a feeling that our restrictions are going to actually increase over the next little bit here, to be honest, just because the numbers are increasing. Yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
Well, they're posing a curfew here so we will see what-
Faeine Grant:
Oh hey, yep. Quebec has that already. Marty's family, he's from Montreal, so all of his family, they've been on lockdown for a while and they've had a curfew for a number of months now.
Jennifer Foley:
Yeah. So our office too, we've now got our offices closed and our front desk staff-
Faeine Grant:
Yep.
Jennifer Foley:
Are going to be working remotely. And-
Faeine Grant:
Okay.
Jennifer Foley:
So we're going to be doing emails, Zoom, I guess they'll still answer phones and all that, right?
Faeine Grant:
Yep.
Jennifer Foley:
And yeah. And our deposits for offers, we're still doing the same thing we've been doing for months where they can wire transfer them to the TD branches. I mean, I don't know how much longer the TD brand thing will happen but, or they can e-transfer, so yeah. So anyhow.
Faeine Grant:
It's changing the world. It's really going to change the world on how we do things in the future. It really is.
Jennifer Foley:
It is, it is for sure.
Faeine Grant:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
So today we're going to talk about the Parent's Guide to Selling a Home With Kids and specifically when you have a showing when you're selling your house and you've got to keep your life under control, it can be a little bit tricky juggling all this, keeping your house clean, getting out for showings because we can't be home for showings, especially during COVID, right? We want to minimize as much contact as possible. And then you add kids to the mix. So holy smokes-
Faeine Grant:
Totally, yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
A three ring circus, right?
Faeine Grant:
So I find that a lot of my clients, a lot of the moms, they stress out even when we're not during a pandemic, even just selling in general or shopping for a home in general with having kids in the house, that's stressful enough. And so I'm finding that more and more and now yeah, moms are like, "Well, what do I do? What do I do with my kids if I have a showing at the house? Or what do I do when I want to go look at the house and I've got three kids? What do I do with them?"
Jennifer Foley:
What do we do?
Faeine Grant:
So yeah, exactly. So-
Jennifer Foley:
What do you tell them?
Faeine Grant:
So, just to back up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So first and foremost, I say, you know what? People will understand. I mean your home is set up to the point where they know you've got kids and I think to a certain degree there is going to be a certain level of understanding. But I've been kind of having to get a little bit creative with some of the ideas that I'm telling them. And before I would say, "Oh, go to the mall or go to a movie," and we can't really do those things anymore. Go out for dinner, go for lunch. We can't really do those things anymore.
Faeine Grant:
So one thing that one of my clients did the other day, which I thought was kind of genius actually, is they just piled up into their van or into their car, whatever kind of vehicle they have, they made some popcorn and they said, "Faeine, we're going to be still in the garage because we need to stream our internet, but we're just going to have a movie night in the car off of the iPad." And I was like, "That's perfect."
Jennifer Foley:
You know what? I like that idea because they could even go just onto the curb, right?
Faeine Grant:
Yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
Get out of the garage, go out on the street and still probably have wifi access and do a movie night. That's a great idea. One of the things that I would tell clients, we would discuss it again. These are just recommendations and ideas depending on the clients, but sometimes we ask the clients if there's a possibility of them moving out, like in a hot market like now where we know that the property is likely going to move fairly quickly. So it'll be minimalist in terms of disrupting their life.
Faeine Grant:
Yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
Maybe they go and stay with family or they'd go up to a trailer, especially this time of year when we've got spring and people have trailers, the go-to, right? And basically move themselves from the house, especially a property that we think might be a hot property where the showing numbers may be quite high and it could be a disruption if they're in and out, in and out, in and out and then you got cranky kids and all the rest of it, right?
Faeine Grant:
Yeah, exactly. And I think too, for a market like right now, what we're doing, what a lot of people are doing is they're having two days of showings, right? Have two full days of showings and then they're doing offer presentations. That's just sort of the regime that people are taking here. And so even doing like a little staycation or now that the weather is getting nice they can go camping, even if it's just for a couple of days, right? I find that some people are almost relieved when they say, "What? You mean we can go take a staycation even if it's just in the hotel in Vancouver or whatever?" It's still close, but it's still just being able to actually be able to get away and not feel guilty about it because there's a reason for it.
Jennifer Foley:
Exactly, exactly.
Faeine Grant:
Right? And then if you're not traveling too far, then obviously you're not contradicting the COVID restrictions in your area as well. So, there is something to be said for that.
Faeine Grant:
Another thing that some people are doing is, I don't know in your area if they have these, but some areas where we are, we're in the Fraser Valley so there's a lot of farmland very close by. And so some of the zoos, like the petting zoos, they've reconstructed themselves so that they're drive-by zoos. So if you want to go for like a drive through trip to the zoo, you can actually do that now. But also what I've seen people do too, is just, they go, they know the areas very well, obviously. So they just go and say that there's a sheep farm or there's a bunch of cows or horses, they'll just go and park. And assuming that the weather's nice, but they just show the kids the animals and half the time people understand and most farmers enjoy when the kids are looking at the horses, right? They think it's great.
Jennifer Foley:
I agree. I agree. I think there's lots of things like that where you can take the kids out into nature, right? Hikes and-
Faeine Grant:
Yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
And again, we're not getting paid for any promotion on this stuff, but like All Trails app, you can find out kid-friendly trails, hiking trails, that kind of stuff. So if you have a lot of showings and you want to take the kids out for a few hours.
Jennifer Foley:
The other thing is too, I think you can, as a home seller with kids, you can try to coordinate with your realtor. Like I try to coordinate with my clients. Okay, what time do your kids go to bed? So let's try to minimize any showings after a certain period of time so that they can settle the kids into bed. Or we'll set up a showing schedule, like 11:00 to 7:00.
Faeine Grant:
Yes.
Jennifer Foley:
Right?
Faeine Grant:
Exactly.
Jennifer Foley:
So then that's every day, the parents know that mom is taking the kids out between this time. And yes, go ahead and book the showings.
Faeine Grant:
Yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
Some other things that I've heard parents doing is just basically taking the kids for a walk around the block. I had that the other day. Some clients of mine in a property who basically when we went in to do the photos and the virtual tour and all that kind of stuff, they took the kids out, right?
Faeine Grant:
Yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
For a short walk. And the playgrounds are still open here so that is an option as well.
Faeine Grant:
Yep.
Jennifer Foley:
I know myself, being a dog mom, I have two large 100 pound dogs that when I sold my house I understood the pains of being a seller and having to get out for showings and basically took my dogs with me and we just went down the street. Now in saying that, another tip I would say that I give to my clients is that we'll minimize the length of the showings. Right?
Faeine Grant:
Yes.
Jennifer Foley:
So prior to COVID, we would block out a one hour time. We would overlap those appointments between realtors. Now we've reduced it down to 30 minutes or 15 minutes, depending on how busy the property is, so that also lessens the time. And I think realtors then become better at getting to properties on time so that-
Faeine Grant:
Yes.
Jennifer Foley:
I mean, sometimes that doesn't work. If you're showing 11 homes, that 15 minute window, we always had that one hour window to allow us that travel time. If we got a little delayed at one property, right, then we would stay a bit longer. But that would be another suggestion that I would give to my clients or discuss with them about options, right, to kind of minimize the disruption with kids.
Faeine Grant:
Definitely, definitely. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I think also I get a lot of moms asking me, "Well, what do I do with all of these big toys that I've got?" As far as hiding the big toys, I mean, there's tons of [inaudible 00:09:46].
Jennifer Foley:
You're talking about when they're listed?
Faeine Grant:
If they're listed, yeah, exactly.
Jennifer Foley:
That's a great topic for our next video-
Faeine Grant:
Exactly.
Jennifer Foley:
So we'll talk about all that. You know what? I think if anybody watching this has any great suggestions for the moms-
Faeine Grant:
Oh, yeah.
Jennifer Foley:
Out there, post them in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you and find out what exactly you're doing with your kids these days-
Faeine Grant:
Absolutely.
Jennifer Foley:
Listed. And yeah. Let us know because we'd love to hear from you. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the like button. Give us lots of love and appreciation to you all for watching this video and stay tuned for next Friday at 1:00 PM for Jen and Faeine and moms in real estate.
Faeine Grant:
And 10:00 AM Pacific time.
Jennifer Foley:
Oh yes. I keep forgetting that. I'm so sorry.
Faeine Grant:
And before I go, I would just like to give a big shout out to all the moms out there because you know what? I mean, we're both moms, we get it and we-
Jennifer Foley:
We're realtors, we're moms, we're sellers or we've been sellers.
Faeine Grant:
Exactly. Oh yeah. Yep. And we get it. And we just want to give a big shout out to all the moms because we know how fun it is and-
Jennifer Foley:
And [inaudible 00:11:02] put a lot of work into it, right, to make this happen.
Faeine Grant:
Exactly.
Jennifer Foley:
Help your realtor, right?
Faeine Grant:
Sure. 100%. Awesome. Thanks guys.
Jennifer Foley:
Bye.
Faeine Grant:
Bye.
Post a comment