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 out. 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.

Taking the extra steps to remove items that can give strangers information about you or your family can save you any possible problems. Besides, these items will have to be packed away eventually so doing so in a manner that you can easily remove them from the premises or know where they are can just give you a jump start on preparing for the final move.

For more information on how to buy or sell  a home, go to http://www.springscleverseller.com or contact Juanita Simkins, Professional Realtor & Expert Negotiator (719) 229-5770