Monday, April 1, 2019

5 Safety Steps for Showing Your Home FSBO

Thanks to Peter Foster on Unsplash for photo



This short version is anybody can.

As a For Sale By Owner, you have less flexibility to narrow the search down to just Realtors accessing your home.  It is very common for people driving by to stop and knock on your door, interested in your house.  It can happen during your morning shower, meal times or even right before bed.  You do have a few options to keep this from happening:

  • Don’t answer your door.
  • Put a requirement that all buyers must be accompanied by agents to view the home.
  • Let anybody in at any time.


Except for the last option, you are going to be limiting your exposure.  Because there is no 1 good location to find legitimate homes for sale by owners, buyers have limited access to this information.  Agents are sending them listings that are found in our MLS.  Some buyers will either drive a neighborhood they are interested in and come across your home or they may be searching the internet on their own and come across it that way.  Your home will still not be seen on the over 50 different websites it would be if you were listed with me.

So….be very cautious about who you let in.  Here are some of the worse case words of warning and some safety practices.

  • Never leave out any valuables, guns, money or prescriptions that someone might see in an initial pass through and want to come back and take at a later time.

  • Make sure your doors and windows are locked at all times.  After a showing, double check your windows because it has been known that people will unlock a window to be able to enter at a later time.

  • It is always a great idea to be able to catch people on video as they enter your home just so you can have a face recognition in the future if it should ever be needed.

  • Before you let them in your home, feel free to ask to see their driver’s license.  If you can snap a quick picture of it with their car in the background, that would be a very good deterrent for the bad guys.  If they have nothing to hide then they shouldn’t have a problem with this step.

  • Never, never, never, never let someone in your home if you are there alone.  Always have someone there with you as a precaution.

It absolutely sucks that we have to talk about these negative aspects of what may happen inside our own homes.  But it is a reality.  I would rather arm you with some basic things to think about than to see you on the 10 o’clock news.

Happy showings!