Selling Your Home and Maintaining Your Privacy
Even if you never hold an Open House to sell your home you have to
realize that you are opening your home to complete strangers to walk
through.
Generally, the agent is with the buyers but some agents also like to
give the buyers’ a little privacy and simply stay within hearings reach.
Either way, even if you your agent stays with the buyer from room to
room or if you have an Open House and your agent can’t be with everyone
who walks through at all times you need to realize that your privacy is
at stake.
It’s okay for buyers to look inside built-in drawers but some buyers
go beyond the limits and may open other drawers also. Right or wrong,
you have to be prepared for people snooping when your home is on the
market so here are some rules to stick by.
If it’s personal, lock it up. That means everything from financial
sheets, banking statements, to personal items and adult items. If you
wouldn’t want a complete stranger seeing it, it needs to be kept under
lock and key. This may mean purchasing a locking box or container or if
you have a desk that rolls down and locks you can cram everything in
there and lock it. No matter what it is, if you don’t want a stranger to
see it and know about it you want to keep it under lock and key.
Things that you can’t keep under lock and key think of other places
you can keep them – for instance in the trunk of your car. Ask a
trusting relative to keep the box stored for you but accessible in case
you should need the items or papers inside. Don’t put them in a storage
container that you may have rented to hold extra furniture because you
do have the risk of the storage container being broken into.
Never leave mail or even magazines with your name on them.
Strangers that visit your house are not always people who are truly
interested in buying your home. Finding out simple information by
looking at a piece of mail that gives your full name and asking a few
questions or seeing something as simple as a yearbook, etc. they can add
up a lot of information that puts you at risk for identity theft. Be
smart and put away anything personal.
By the time you’re ready to show your home it should look fairly
impersonal with pictures, papers, mail and personal items out of view
and packed away or locked away. Professional thieves and people who use
personal information for identity theft know what to look for and where
to look. This can mean computers left on, banking statements tucked into
drawers, or even bills sitting in a desk drawer.
Of course we’re not trying to scare you but prepare you. Don’t assume
that everyone that comes into your home is there to spy or find out
information; yet be prepared for the possibility of just one person who
may be a bit more of a snoop or have alternate intentions. While most
agents take the time to find out information about the people they bring
into your home they can’t be private investigators.
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