How you can help with showings

I get asked all the time by home sellers - "How can I help with the showing process?" My answer is simple - Get out of the way!

No kidding. Make it as easy as possible for the Realtor to do his/her job. Not only should you allow a lock-box to be placed on your house, you should make the showing instructions as painless as possible. That may mean that you must take on a lot of inconvenience. You must be able to get out of the house on short notice and make it easy for the selling agent to schedule showings for others. The easiest house to schedule for a showing is one that is already vacant; although, vacant houses are harder to sell, so make it easy to schedule an appointment to show your house

If you don’t already have either an answering machine or voicemail service on your phone, get one or the other. Be prepared to check those frequently and allow the selling agent to book and appointment by just leaving you a message and giving the showing agent the lock box combo. Any time that you’re out, even to church or for dinner, check the machine or voicemail before you go home, there may be a showing in progress or scheduled for about the time that you would get home. You don’t want to be there during a showing. The showing agent doesn’t want you there and the buyers would feel awkward if you were there, so take a drive, go to the movies or store - just go. Let the real estate professionals do their jobs.

You really can’t help directly with this aspect of the process. There are some tips for things that you can do before you leave to make the showings go better.

Turn on all the lights. Make it easy to see the house, especially during the darker winter months.

If you have a gas fireplace and it is winter, you might turn it on. If you have one or two very safe (in glass containers) fragrant candles, you might light them.

We’ve seen other tips like bake bread or pop popcorn or do other things in the kitchen to leave a nice odor in the air. We’ll let you be the judge of how much you want to do. Just try not to leave bad odors in the air. Heavy cooking odors can be as bad in a house as heavy pet or smoking odors.

Also remember to take your dog with you and your cat too if possible. Buyers don’t really want to be accosted by your pets and many may have allergies to pets so get them out of the house. Hopefully your house doesn’t smell like a full cat box or like your dog, but if it does, deodorize the place as you leave and perhaps put the litter box out in the garage. Yapping dogs or cats trying to make the buyer's leg a scratching post are definite turn-offs.

The other thing that I normally caution sellers about is leaving anything of value out where a visitor could take it. Smaller items of value - jewelry, CDs pens and such should be put away. The showing Realtor is responsible to try to make sure that his/her client doesn't take anything or damage anything, but it's best to just remove the temptations.