Every homeowner is super excited when they finally decide to list their home for sale. What’s not to be happy about? Your home looks great and you’re ready to receive top dollar for your property. What starts off as a beautiful, heavenly situation, can quickly turn into a frustrating and stressful time.
Having to leave your home for viewings while being on the market for an extended period, can begin to weigh down on you. Now, the time your home is on the market typically isn’t what will cause you distress. What will become an issue for you however, is certain things that the agent may do with their buyers when viewing your home, that you should be prepared for in advance.
- Keeping their shoes on. Even though your realtor has likely placed a sign in your home to kindly remind the agents, and their buyers, to remove their shoes when viewing your property; some folks simply don’t follow the rules. So, don’t be surprised if you come home every now and again to see shoe marks on your floor.
- Leaving the lights on. This is one of the most common issues that you’ll encounter when your home is being shown. Admittedly, it’s easy to forget a few lights as you’re running through the property and leaving to get to your next appointment, but as a homeowner, it can get frustrating when your lights are routinely left on. Especially if you’re not going to be home for the next several hours.
- Leaving a door unlocked. This one will really grind your gears. I’ll admit, this is never actually happen to me, but I have heard of this happening several times to others. It would really suck to have your doors unlocked while you’re not home. In the event that something were to happen after a viewing, the first thing I would do is to check and make sure that all my doors were locked.
- Not scrambling the lockbox after the viewing. When agents are viewing your home they’re accessing the lock box using a combination that is given to them by your real estate agent. When the viewing is finished, that agent should put the key back into the lock box and also jumble the code on the box. The reason for this is, if the code is not altered, then anyone could quickly walk up to your lock box, open it, grab the key, and access your home.
- Not showing up for their scheduled viewing. I saved the best for last. And this one will by far be the most annoying thing you will have to encounter when you are listing your home for sale. There are agents who will book vewings between a set hour and completely forgot to call and let you know that they aren’t going to be able to make it during their scheduled time. Understandably, as a seller this would be infuriating. You’re preparing your home and leaving it for up to an hour at a time, only to find out that the agent you left your home for hasn’t even come to view it with their buyers. More importantly, they didn’t even given you the respect of a call to say that they wouldn’t be coming.
For the most part, agents are very courteous and respectful of a homeowner’s time and appreciate the opportunity to show your home to their buyer. What this list does is provide you with some insight prior to you putting your home on the market, so you know what can happen when you list. Being prepared for the potential pitfalls can help mitigate some of the stress and frustration that may come your way.