Becky and I had an AirBNB request from someone interested in booking our property for a birthday party. We said, “no thanks.” This doesn’t seem like a good time to entertain.
If you’re selling your home, you may have concerns about hosting showings. This is understandable. You’re inviting unknown people into your space and you never know what they’re bringing with them.
That said, understand that as the home owner you get to set the terms of home showings and you should ensure that you make your wishes known.
Today’s video details a handful of things that you may want to consider to reduce the risk of exposure that comes with hosting physical viewings.
✅ Be sure to select an agent that uses tools that can help qualify buyers during their first viewing, the one that happens online. Professional images, 3D tours and rich descriptions will go a long way in helping buyers decide if the home meets their needs.
✅ You can require masks and hand sanitizer use
✅ You can limit the number of people who can attend a showing.
✅ You can ask that all buyers answer a COVID questionnaire before they visit.
✅ You can ask that only the REALTOR® touch in the home.
✅ Turn on all lights and request that switches not be turned off.
✅ Leave closet doors open.
I loved this idea that I encountered last week. Cut sticky notes into strips and ask that one be placed anywhere that the home was touched.
Happy selling!
Transcript
With COVID numbers on the rise, I thought it would be a good time to recap some of the simple things that buyers and sellers can do, to reduce the risk of exposure, if they find themselves in a position where they have to buy or sell a home, at this time.
Yesterday I presented seven great tips for buyers. Those are available on my blog now at teamfisher.com/blog. And this edition is for sellers.
Home sellers, I want to remind you that every single first showing of your home will happen online, so the more information that is available for buyers there, and the richer the digital media that's available, the better chance that your home showings are going be highly qualified.
I was really surprised to learn recently, that fewer than 20% of the homes on realtor.ca, have a 3D tour on them. And I think that this is something that's just so important right now. TeamFisher provides professional photos and a 3D tour for every home we list, regardless of its value. And this is something that you might consider insisting on yourself.
Now, if you want to get offers on your property, you're going to have to have it shown. You know, the odds of getting a sight unseen offer, are very small. But there's a number of things that you can do there and you should remember first of all, that as the home owner, you have every right to set the terms for the showing. You can say how you expect it to go down.
So some simple things that I might recommend to you would be A, all of the buyers that view your home, complete a COVID questionnaire, that's available to realtors, through our real estate association. You know, all the basic questions about travel and potential exposure.
Secondly, you can insist that anybody that views your home wears a mask and sanitizes their hands before they enter the property.
Thirdly, you could limit the number of people that are allowed to view the home at any one time. I would say two people, plus the agent is more than reasonable at this time.
Leave doors opened and lights on throughout the property, so that you can reduce the need to touch and open things. And perhaps even specify that one person will handle all of the touching and opening. So the realtor can walk the client through and if something needs to be opened, they can open those doors and close those doors, with their cleanly sanitized hands.
I showed a property last week, and I thought the seller there had a great idea. She had taken sticky notes and cut them into slivers basically, and left them at the door and asked if you touched anything when you were on your way through if you could please just apply a sticky note to that spot. So that she would know where to concentrate her efforts when she got home and wanted to clean up a bit.
Finally, keep some Lysol wipes around and touch up those obvious spaces. The flat surfaces, light switches, door handles when you get home.
Most importantly, stay safe out there, good luck marketing your property.
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TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 2.8 million pages to our visitors. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes..
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra