Surviving Showings - Basic Showing Etiquette for Home Sellers
June 8th, 2009 categories: Home Sellers
Putting your house on the market invites criticism, inconvenience and disruption.
Agents and their clients show up at the wrong time. Agents ask you questions you weren’t prepared to answer. Buyers knock over a treasured piece of pottery. The agent accidentally lets your cat out or knocks over your driveway lighting.
I know it happens because I and my clients have done all of these things and other buyers and agents have done this and more to my listings.
Sure, good stuff happens too - like people give you money for your house. But there can be some aggravation along the way. Expect it. Plan for it. But whatever you do, don’t get angry at the buyers and their agent.
Want to survive putting your house on the market? Here are some basic tips for showing etiquette:
If an agent & their buyer shows up late to a showing…
Unless it’s really inconvenient, the agent is several hours late, or you have some kind of emergency, just grin and bear it. Agents do their best to schedule showings and sometimes we’re early and sometimes we’re late. For your own sanity, leave the house a half hour before the showing and plan not to come back for a half hour after the showing. If they’re sitting at your dining table writing an offer, you wouldn’t be too put out by the extra time, would you?
Whatever you do, don’t get an attitude about it and don’t do what a homeowner did to me this week - throw me out of a house (after I had asked permission to enter and was granted).
If an agent or their client damages your property…
Accidents happen. If you’re selling your house, you should try to remove anything that’s valuable to you or is in a bad location (a vase on a small table by the front door, for example). Unless the agent or buyer was grossly negligent and it caused significant damage, just let it go.
And it’s best to keep all pets in a secure location, like a crate. Doors to rooms are opened and left open. And buyers are annoying in that they want to see every room of the house before they buy it. So, keep your pets locked up or remove them from the house altogether.
If an agent shows up without an appointment...
Politely ask them to use the lockbox (if they’re an agent, they either have an electronic key or called the office for a combination) and ask them to give you a business card. If you can’t accommodate a showing, then either ask them to wait outside or ask them to reschedule as you’re not prepared for a showing. But be as nice as pie when you tell them - it may not be their fault. It may be that they called your agent’s office and the showing was logged incorrectly or not at all.
If you insist on being present during all showings…
It’s best to only speak when spoken to. And if you are spoken to or asked questions, be courteous. If you have nothing to say that will help sell the house, say nothing. A builder I met recently at a house he has on the market installed low quality/out-of-style kitchen cabinets in new construction in an upscale area. When the buyer asked him if the builder would replace the cabinets with something else, the builder asked, “Why? What’s wrong with these?” When the buyer said that he preferred something else, the builder rolled his eyes.
The Etiquette Lesson - Frasier
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