Sort of working mom related...moving

jd614

DH and i have decided to keep an eye on the market in one particular town and if something great came up we would jump on it. So not actively looking, but definitley watching. Well we went to an open house yesterday of a house that was just put on the market and we loved it. Its a great layout and a low enough price point where we can basically redo every room the way we want it and still be in budget (not not new construction-but close enough!) The lower price point also puts us in a much more comfortable position financially as the taxes are significantly lower and the mortgage would be lower as well (its a smaller house but thats what we want).  The issue is...now if we decide to go for it, we need to sell our house. I feel like life is so chaotic, I have no idea when I would have the time to prep our house for sale with a 7 month old that has stuff every where AND when would i even have the time to pack?! If you have sold you house/moved with an infant..how did you find the time to do everything!? Im already stressed and we havent even made an offer on the house yet!

jf198400

I'm following this post! DH and I are hoping to move in the next 2years and I'm wondering the exact same thing.

peekaboo716

We put our house on the market when DS was 8 months old, I think. We asked for help with a couple of the things we needed to do to get our house ready, and on some of the things, we worked on it after DS went to bed, and during nap time on the weekends. I found the hardest part to be making sure the house was ready to be shown at a moment's notice. What we did was have our realtor put in the listing that we required one hour notice prior to any showing (since we had dogs we needed to get out). We sold our house faster than others in the market, and moved shortly thereafter.

For me, it was more stressful with the actual move (cross-country). Again, after DS's bed time and nap time was my friend. We also had friends help! Also, we started packing even before our house was sold. Why not - we needed to "declutter" anyway 

It's amazing how things just fall into place.

BeachBum73

We moved from a townhouse into our current single family home when my daughter was 3 months old.  It was stressful but my husband carried the load of the sale and purchase for the most part.  I also took days off during the week when daycare would watch my dd and I could pack (we don't have family near us).  You could rent a storage pod and put stuff away now so it's easier to show the house and less to clean/keep organized.  Plus you're one step closer to the move.  It would be easier if you didn't have a kid but it's also much crazier if you have more than one kid so you just have to bite the bullet and break things down into manageable parts.

cecilyandgautam

Not quite the same, but we're upgrading furniture and finding that stuff we would have done on our own on a weekend, we now pay to have done by others in the middle of the work week. If you have room in your budget, hiring cleaning and packing services may be worth it / necessary. 

oandmplus1

I was 8 months pregnant and had a toddler when we sold our house. I packed a little at a time during naps, after bedtime and on weekends when there were 2 of us.

When our house was on the market it was very crazy, we had showings pretty frequently but required 24 hours notice. We had quite a bit of projects to get done to get it ready. I painted after bedtime and DH did things weekends when I was there to watch DD. I stored away any clutter and had packed up a lot of the clutter we didn't really need right away. I also just did a little cleaning each night before bed to keep the house in shape for showings. Luckily it sold in 2 weeks. It was intense, but do-able.

We are buying a new house now and I am so not looking forward to moving with 2 kids.

aglenn

We paid the moving company to pack us.  That was well worth the money in my opinion!  They blew through there and everything was professionally packed so quickly I couldn't believe it.  We also paid our cleaning lady to do a deep clean once we were out of there.  We didn't have to do much touching up or painting, so DH just did whatever there was on a day off from work.  So, I guess my answer is we were lazy and outsourced for the most part, but it worked out really well.

If I were you I'd be more worried about managing renovations on the new place than packing and moving.  That stuff can be a headache.

mae0111

We moved when DD2 was 2 months old, and DD1 was 3.5. I was on maternity leave, so I wound up doing a lot of the running around. I did as much packing as I could, and we got a Pod so I could move the boxes out as I packed them. We also got movers, and they ended up packing a good amount that I didn't get to. We spent more than we should have, but my sanity was worth it. I was worried about the showings, but we refused showings until the 1st open house, and got 3 solid offers that day. We only had to keep it clean for a weekend. But a big thing we did to minimize the cleaning was to really declutter. We packed away a ton if toys, photos, knick knacks, etc., and put them in the basement, tucked away. It helped.

It was tough, but doable. Good luck!!!

lujain

We just signed a contract to buy a home yesterday, and I am stressed about selling our current home.  We are planning to purge a lot of DD's old toys and clothes by sending them to Goodwill.   We are going to pack up a lot of our junk so our home will look clutter-free.  We may need to store some boxes at my mother-in-law's house until we get into our new home.

We bought our current home when DD was 8 months old.  Looking back, I can't believe we were able to find a new home, pack, move, and unpack in our seriously sleep-deprived state.  It took us months to unpack; we did only a little at a time.

Hopefully we will never have to move again after this round.

sadie+w

We were In a similar situation, just keeping our eyes out, when we found the perfect piece of property and decided to buy it and put our house up for sale. I took an afternoon off work and had the nanny keep LO entertained in a different part of the house so I could clean and organize. We had 5 showings in two days and an offer on day 3. We packed every night after LO went to bed. We had grandparents come over to watch LO while we packed and moved. We could not get anything done while also taking care of him. We hired movers for the big stuff and our dads helped us with boxes. It was a very stressful time, I'm not going to lie! But it was also quite short, so definitely doable. Especially if you have people than can help take care of LO while you pack and move. GL!

StayingSecret

This is me.  We have a 17 month old and we're moving in 3 weeks.  And I'm due for LO#2 in 5 weeks.

I just packed in my "spare" time.  Goal was to pack a couple of boxes every day.  But we had about 2.5 months between when we made our offer and when we close/take possession.  The people whose house we're buying are building a new house and that's when their house will be ready.

We were lucky in that we didn't have to sell our current house in order to close on our new house.  So I was able to do the For Sale By Owner thing and take my time if I wanted to.  It did mean that I had to keep the house clean enough to show if someone called.  Stunk with an active kid that puts toys out everywhere, but saved us some coin.

We're also hiring a moving company and doing some fixing up before we actually move in - just painting and new carpet while the house is empty and there isn't any furniture to move.