An organized and proactive process can help keep the peace between family members and sell your client’s home efficiently, Lindsey Harn writes.
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Selling a home in 2025 isn’t as simple as staking a red “For Sale” sign in the front yard. It’s accompanied by stress surrounding home preparation, client communication, and pricing — and all while coordinating the move-out.
These usual stressors that come with selling a home are compounded by the noise of multiple generations of family members providing input. Whether the family lives in a multi-generational family dynamic or you’re selling a house that has sentimental value to the family, it can be overwhelming to hear contradicting opinions and orders being presented to you.
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Each generation has a distinct lived experience in terms of what they consider the most effective approach to selling a home.
For example, Grandma Lucy may think that displaying her best doilies and ornate ceramic birds will make the house appear classy and attract buyers. At the same time, Dad Mitch might believe that keeping the space clean and hiding evidence that children have lived there will make it the most marketable.
The point is that selling a home and filtering through multitudes of family opinions can be draining, so we’ve compiled a list of tips and simple adjustments to make to allow the process of selling your client’s home to be as pain-free as possible.
Establish a leader
Assigning a person from the start who will have the final say in decisions is crucial to ensure consensual decisions about the home and to make this a well-organized effort. This assigned leader will communicate primarily with you and maintain clear communication to ensure the process is organized and efficient. When it comes to assigning the leader, it doesn’t always have to be the person who is financially bound.
It can be the family member you see as the most coordinated, or the grandmother who is most attached to the home. Regardless of who is assigned as the leader, it is essential to establish this at the beginning of the process to maintain streamlined communication among the leader, you and the buyers.
The leader needs to be someone who takes into account family opinion, but filters it through and makes the best decision overall for the home’s successful sale. It’s not your responsibility to decide who the leader is, but rather to express to the family that having a leader would be very helpful.
Why selling a vacant home saves stress
Circumstances vary for why families decide to sell their homes, whether that be to immediately move into a new home or for financial investment reasons. With this being said, because situations differ, it’s not always feasible to show a vacant house, but it can be fruitful. It can assist in sales by allowing the buyer to envision their own space when touring the home and prevent deterring specific generational audiences with outdated furniture, decor, etc.
When buyers decide to embark on the journey of buying a home, they are looking for a house to turn into their own, and that’s important to keep in mind. Overall, making the home a clean and empty space creates a blank canvas that attracts any buyer to the physical layout of your client’s home.
On a different subject, familial issues tend to be lessened when there isn’t a conversation about how to present the home to potential buyers. Each generation has a distinct creative approach to decorating the home, and debating which furniture, pictures and decor to hide is an argument that could be avoided by selling the home vacant.
Invest in profitable home improvements
When putting a home on the market, it’s natural for clients to want their home to look its best. Often, families begin to go manic with renovating their homes, redoing bathrooms, kitchens and changing light fixtures, etc. While these all contribute to making the house more modern structurally, these renovations can be costly and don’t directly ensure profit.
When investing money in a home you’re selling, you want to confirm that if the family puts $1 into the house, they will receive a $2 return. Renovations such as painting are cost-effective but can still dramatically change a space. So, you can tell your client it’s okay to listen to their Gen Z child talking about aesthetic home renovations, but keep in mind the cost, so they don’t break the bank.
Renovations such as updating hardware, painting and maintaining the lawn are low-cost and low-energy updates that revamp the home and make it a more marketable space. Additionally, these changes are all minor enough that each generation can input their unique design changes, ensuring everyone is included.
Intentionality and organization
Selling a home, regardless of the circumstances, is stressful for most Americans, and a house is the most significant investment most families will ever make. There are high stakes when putting a home on the market, and it can be especially overwhelming when considering family opinion.
These tips won’t make selling your client’s home a suddenly smooth experience, but they can help mitigate unnecessary issues that usually arise. Ultimately, the goal for everyone is to sell the house at the highest market price possible promptly with the least inconvenience.
Assigning a leader, selling a vacant home and investing in cost-effective renovations can help keep the peace between family members and sell your client’s home efficiently.
Lindsey Harn is an agent with Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno and a certified Divorce Real Estate Expert. Connect with her on Instagram and Linkedin.
