Your House is for Sale? Are You Ready for Showings?

You’ve signed your listing agreement!  Your house is cleaned! You followed the list of instructions to get your home ready for photography. The pictures are taken. The “For Sale” sign is in the front yard! Now what?  You sit and wait for showings. Here are some quick hints that might help prepare you for what will happen next, after your agent informs you there will be a showing:

1. Agents will be late. Or early. Why does this happen? Often, agents schedule several homes to be shown to their buyer during a block of time.  For example, House “A”, is scheduled to be shown between 10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m., House “B” from 10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. and so on.  Well, if the buyers love House “A”, they may be there for an hour.  Or, if they hate it, they may be there for five minutes.  The rest of the schedule is now messed up.

2. No one shows up at all. This can happen when the buyers love House “A” so much, they want to run back to the office and write an offer.  The agent might get so caught up in the moment, that he forgets to call and cancel the other appointments!  Another reason (I’ve heard them all), is that the buyer or agent became ill, and they had to call their showings short.  There is really no excuse for not receiving a phone call, but it happens.

3. Lights are left on. Conversely, lights are turned off. Imagine you are a real estate agent, and you are showing a home to a family. There are two adults, two kids, plus the mother and father of the couple.  It’s hard to lasso all these people together from room to room. If one walks ahead and turns on a light, the agent may be distracted while talking with multiple parties and forget to check that the light was left on.  You come home and “surprise”, it may look like poltergeist were there. On the other hand, I recently had a seller complain that an agent turned OFF a light. The agent was trying to be nice and turned it off, thinking it had been accidentally turned on, but apparently, this homeowner always left a certain light “on”.

4. Blinds or curtains may be left open. See item #3.

5. You are locked out of your house.  Many people leave the door to the house directly from the garage left unlocked (I bet you do).  Real estate agents can get overzealous and start locking everything! Drat! You don’t happen to have a key, and you are locked out of your house until your wife gets home.  The angry call to the agent comes next (unless you read this article – then you’ll be prepared for such things.)

6. Dirt from shoes may be brought in.  Let’s face it. Some people are really fussy about leaving shoes on in the house.  If you seriously don’t want agents and customers wearing their shoes inside, provide some booties by the front door (they’re called protective shoe guards –  you can get them at Lowes for $9.98 for a pack of 24). Some people feel really self-conscious about exposing their bare feet (I’m not naming names), so it would be a nice gesture. One of my sellers put a lovely basket of booties with a card in her foyer as a reminder.

7. Horrors, someone may use your bathroom! Emergencies happen on the road. As a preventative measure, if you have a vacant house with the water shut off, tape a note to the toilet seats so you won’t find a mess later. Sorry for the graphic details, but as I mentioned, I’ve seen it all!

8. Have a sense of humor and understanding.  Remember, real estate agents are trying to manage a buyer (or buyers), follow their GPS, reference written showing instructions, be friendly,  make small talk and do it all on time.  In the end, they are trying to sell your house.

It’s Wendy… It’s Sold!

Wendy Rulnick, Broker, Rulnick Realty, Inc.
Call 850-650-7883 ext 204
Email Wendy: [email protected]

Wendy Rulnick, Broker, has been featured in “Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine” and “Florida Realtor Magazine”.  Wendy Rulnick sells real estate in Destin, Santa Rosa Beach, 30A, Miramar Beach, Seagrove Beach, Watercolor, Sandestin, Seaside, Crestview, Rosemary Beach, Mary Esther, Shalimar, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville, Bluewater Bay, Navarre, Panama City Beach.