Put baskets full of dirty laundry in the car. Do not have any towels drying in the bathroom post shower (only have "show" towels on the bars).

And hope you're always home when you get notified of a showing so you can do all that stuff. Or I guess you do it every time you leave the house too. Fortunately I've managed to sell all my houses either with one or two no fuss showings or after I moved out.

Get a couple of nice new plastic laundry baskets, dump everything in them and put them in the car.

Put the dog beds in the car. Put the dirty laundry in the car. You can require notice before showings. We asked for 24 hours, most people are understanding.

What i usually tell my clients is, its very hard to live in your house when its for sale. You have to treat it like its not your house. It has to be show ready when its time for a showing. If the market is good in your area, you most likely will only need to do this for a couple of weeks. Inconvenience yourself for the few weeks, get it done and over with and get an offer. It beats doing it half A%#&@ed for 3 months. DO NOT leave ANY rooms with the mindset that "people have to understand we live here, or we work here", They dont! The faster you sell, the higher your price.

Take down and put away any pictures of family and friends. You aren't selling your family. You are selling to someone else's family. Pictures distract as do the dogs.

Turn down the thermostat a bit and stack your papers on the desks. This is an opportunity to clean the desks and files out. Turn on all the lights before you leave. Even if it's a light that you never use. Make sure all light bulbs are good. Clean the sinks and fresh towels. Put the toilet seats down. Don't go overboard with the smell good stuff, but with dogs you need to bake a cookie or some rolls.

Showing a house is work. If you want to sell quickly and for top dollar, it takes effort.

We always require a notation in the internal realtor listing advising there are dogs present and we will need notice in order to remove them for showing. I'm of the mind that a serious buyer will wait a few hours and go through the protocol.

Living in a house that is on the market is a PITA but it is important that the house always is pristine (and I mean pristine) . Here are some of the things I have done. ALWAYS leave the house perfect when we leave for work each day because you never know when the realtor will schedule a last minute showing. This includes a wipe down of the bathroom and sweeping your way out the door if you have carpet. Don't ignore any part of the house, including closets and cupboards. People will look and you want storage to be a selling point. Always have a set of towels, soaps, throw rugs etc that are for the showings only. Remove every last bit of clutter from the home. Temporarily re-home the pets if you can. Put away every single personal thing. Our first home was on the market about 5 weeks while we had a new puppy and a young child. Fun times! Our last two sold to the first people to tour the home. So relieved to only go through the selling process for a short time! The day our last home sold, I was late to work because I was re-cleaning the bathroom (in my work clothes!) and sweeping my way out of the house. I literally went to work with the dirty laundry from my hamper and my sweeper in the backseat of my car. Very best of luck to you in your sale.

Edited to add: Don't assume that having the realtor give 24 hours notice will be sufficient because you will get calls asking if someone can see the house asap. Be open to this. Our last buyer literally changed a flight out of town to later in the day to see our home first thing in the morning the day it hit the market. We then had a second request from another buyer for that afternoon. I did not get the call from the realtor asking if the house could be shown until late the night before but if I had insisted on needing the 24 hours buyer would have not seen the property. Again, good luck.

Just get used to the fact that life will be insane until its sold. No way around it.

Oh my gosh, what useful ideas! Brilliant about putting things in the car. I DO find myself muttering, "people live here, for crying out loud!" but our realtor has told us the same thing - it's not our house.

We are still in the decluttering phase, but I am already moving into the mindset of never leaving the house without running through the checklist. My husband and I are taking turns reminding each other that we have to do this.

Dogs have to stay here, but friends have just given us a large portable run that we can put out on the other side of the barn. (We are on 80 acres.)

Thanks for the reminder about dog smell. I think it seems odd to bake for the smell (and I also hate artificial scent). However, I just had a brilliant idea. We are building a house in town. My husband takes the crew donuts. They're going to start getting Pillsbury canned cinnamon buns, croissants, etc. every day.

When we had one of our homes on the market, we were homeschooling, and I had a baby who was using cloth diapers. I took all the extra junk with us when we went, including the diaper pail. LOL

Our windows and granite were cleaned daily, sometimes twice daily so that they would be pristine. The window cleaning made everything looks super sparkly. My kids learned to use a squeegee on the counters.

We also had chickens at the time, and we ended up getting rid of them before we put the house on the market, though I keep the coops and other stuff up and around.

One time, our realtor called when we were about 40 minutes away, with someone who wanted to see the house asap. My kids were in the house (we had teens and littles), and so they knew what to do. They went to the neighbors house. It turned out that not one, but two people were wanting to see it that afternoon. I was so glad that I had trained the kids on how to take everything with them when the house was shown.

It’s a lot of work to keep house clean for showings. We trained ourselves to load “stuff” into cars and mopped our way out the door!

Biggest problem was DH working midnights and I had to keep getting him up to get out of the house. Then as soon as he got back into bed, we’d get another call for a showing. I felt so bad for him, but we needed to sell the house!

Buy new dog beds. Wash their covers every few days. Remove them from the house before showings. A portable Honeywell air cleaner with charcoal filter ($150 or so) may help a lot. Ask your agent to be honest about the smells.

I hope you have a file cabinet that locks so anything work related can be put away (and locked) while potential buyers are in the house.

I always threw the damp shower towels in the dryer to keep the bathrooms feeling fresher. Then set out the "just for show" towels.

With your list, I'd only request 2 hour before showing, 4 hour max. You don't need 24 hours to do it and you may lose a good buyer.

Many people do this, the ones that don't waste time and money.

I was living in a rental on the market and, because I had a good landlord and I was a good tenant, I made sure the place was completely picked up every day before I went to work. In a pinch, don't forget the oven and/or dishwasher as a handy place to dump counter clutter (dishrack, toaster) temporarily.

Well, I would look into both appliances to check their condition if I were considering a house!

In which case it would be obvious what I had done. Nonetheless, I think the good impression made from an uncluttered counter is more valuable.

Don't forget the basics that I hope your realtor told you about.

All jewelry, watches and small valuables (such as iPads or cameras) need to be locked up* or tossed in a basket for the car. Don't even think about hiding stuff in your underwear drawer. All the best thieves know to look there.

**this includes extra keys such as a second set of car keys, garage remotes, house keys - don't make it easy for a thief to come back later

All personal information, files, passwords, mail, anything with your SSN, that sort of thing, needs to be in a locked cabinet or tossed in a basket for the car.

All medications need to be tossed in the car.

All firearms and ammunition need to be removed.

Unfortunately, there are people who will view houses only as an easy means to steal your identity or valuables. There are horror stories of couples splitting up to distract the agent so that the other one can rifle through your things.

Good luck and stay safe!

Just want to add...while we asked for 24 hrs notice, we never turned a potential buyer away over short notice. The house needs to be close to showable at all times.

All good suggestions above.

As an agent I remind the sellers to make sure that horizontal surfaces need to be cleared of items - including the floor area and even floor areas of the closets. If you have too many things on the floor (including shoes) it looks like you don't have enough storage. It's a good time to go through your personal items and pare down all of your excess stuff. I call this "pre-packing". Pack it up and get it out of the house.

If you have collections of anything - either remove the collection entirely or significantly pack away most of the collection. As mentioned by homechef59 - you don't want distractions laying about the house.

Check with your agent about the 24 hour notice. Here, it would hamper showings somewhat. You typically will know the day before, but if you make it a requirement, it will slow down the showing requests (in my area). Real estate sales is local, so your agent would be the best person to tell you how that particular requirement impacts your showings.

Good luck!