How to Keep Yourself Safe When Showing Your Home

You can never be too cautious, especially when you are inviting strangers into the safety of your home!

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Showing your home is an essential yet risky step of selling your house. There are many ways in which you can expose the vulnerable points of your house to intruders and risk an attack. By recognizing and keeping those vulnerabilities in check, you can keep your house safe while you are showing prospective buyers their new home. Here are a few ways in which you can protect yourself and your home safe while showing it to buyers:

Ask for Prior Appointments

You can easily keep track of the people coming in if they book an appointment first. It will give you adequate time to prepare your home for a showing. Following a preplanned schedule will be extremely helpful if you have to set up the rooms and hide away precious belongings. Appointments also let your real estate agent verify the credentials of the person coming in for the showing, adding one layer of protection even before someone enters your home. 

Ask for ID Without Hesitation

If someone has already booked an appointment, they will come prepared with their ID card during the showing. Before letting them enter your home, ask for identification so that you can clarify that it is the right person at your door and not an imposter. If someone denies having an ID or showing it to you, do not let them enter and simply ask them to leave or come back with an ID. It is always better to be safe than sorry. If you feel like you will drive away potential buyers this way, try to notify each buyer beforehand when they make the appointment. Also, remember to tell yourself that you are protecting yourself, your family, and your home from someone whose intentions you do not know. 

Get a Good Safe

You can be careful while showing your house but there is one necessity that you must follow. Installing a good quality secure safe in your home is important at all times and not only when you are showing it to someone. While there are multiple home safe manufacturers in the market, only a few will provide complete safety of your belongings through quality manufacturing. 

Remove Pricey Things From Direct View

If you are showing your house to families or buyers, you will be presenting the house as a lived-in space, but taking care of your belongings should be your top priority. If you have some heirlooms or pricey items on display, consider removing them. The showpieces might be for display, but they can attract burglars. If you have any items with personal information lying about, keep them hidden away in the drawers. If you are skeptical about giving them to a friend, you can hide them secretly in a book safe. 

Potential Weapons Should be Hidden

Along with pricey items and personal information, some other things are best kept hidden. These include anything that can potentially be used as a weapon against you. For instance, in a kitchen setup, showing your knife set might sound like a good idea, but an opportunist burglar might use it to threaten you. Set your house up beautifully but while also keeping in mind the possibility of protecting yourself. 

Do Not Do It Alone

It is always a good idea to have someone with you as you show your house. Even if you are showing it to one person, you need to have at least two people watching over everything. If you are a single owner, request the real estate agent to accompany each buyer during the showing. It will help your belongings stay safe during the showing. Furthermore, you will make yourself more vulnerable to attacks if you are alone, so always have someone on your side while showing your house for sale. 

Mind the Number of People Coming Together

If you are showing the house to a couple of families together, then you need to be extra vigilant. The safety measures need to be even more strictly enforced if it is an open house. Even if it is an open house showing, cap the upper limit of people who can enter at one time. 

This is a good policy, especially if it is just you and your agent looking over the potential buyers. Remember to ask for identification before you let anyone enter the premises. Choose one entry point and exit point to further control the flow of traffic. 

Protect your Passwords

This seems too obvious at first glance. But when we are comfortable in a palace, we are prone to be careless, especially when it comes to protecting our codes and passwords from people around us. It will do you good to be guarded and refrain from typing out codes when someone is looking over your shoulder. 

Even if your agent asks for keys to your house or garage or any security codes, think twice before agreeing. If you are not going to be present and have no home security system in place, then it is best for you to keep the passwords, codes, and keys to yourself. 

Open House Should Have Rules

Opening your house up to a crowd makes it more vulnerable to petty thefts and security threats. You can enforce rules to keep the traffic to a minimum by allowing a certain number of people in the house at a given time. Allow a time limit for exploration and then offer new buyers to keep the crowd circulating. One person can stand guard at doors to keep a check on traffic and check identifications. 

The Takeaway

You can certainly minimize the security threats you will be making yourself vulnerable to while being vigilant. All it takes is foresight and awareness of security weaknesses. Keep your prized possessions in safes and your passwords private. Do not refrain from asking for identification if you find yourself doubting someone’s intentions.