Put These Items Away During an Open House

When you decide to sell your home, hosting open houses is part of the process. This is one of the best ways for prospective buyers to get a real feel for your home and see if it is a good fit for them. Some people even make offers on the spot! Hundreds of strangers will be coming into your home and looking in every nook and cranny so it's important to remove all of your personal items. When you choose to work with Balboa Realty, our Orange County real estate expert team will guide you every step of the way. Balboa Realty will help you prepare your home for an upcoming open house so you can feel stress free and focus on selling your home.

Looking for a local & reliable Orange County Property Management & Real Estate company? Call Balboa Realty: 949-386-8310

Personal Mail & Documents 

This may seem obvious to many, but it's important to reiterate that all personal items such as credit cards, cash, passports, ID cards etc. should be kept in a super safe location. If possible, find a safe place outside of your home like a storage locker with a lock box to keep these items. It may seem safe to have unopened, sealed letters in your home during an open house, but these too should be put away somewhere safe. You want to prevent people from seeing your full name with possibly personal numbers and information. 

Medications

In addition to personal document, medications are extremely personal and important. For some people, medications are the key to keeping their bodies healthy and functioning and it is imperative that they never miss a dose. Unfortunately, horror stories have occurred and people's medications have been reported to go missing during open houses. We never want to think the worst about people, but in reality things do happen, so preventing them from happening in the first place is the way to go. Before you host an open house, be sure to remove all medications and put them in a safe spot.

Pets

Although many people are animal lovers, prospective buyers are here to see your house and not to come over and see your cute new puppy. In other instances, some people are scared of animals and some people are allergic, so this could deter buyers from coming to see your home. Removing your animals from your house is the smart thing to do and you will then get the most amount of potential buyers. If you do have an animals make sure you do a deep clean of your home so there is no pet hair or smell in your home.

Food

When buyers come into your kitchen expect that they will be opening your fridge and checking out your cupboards. No one wants to see ketchup dripping down the side of the bottle, moldy old bread or take out boxes from last night. They want to see a clean fridge and clean cabinets. You want to show the storage space without having items in the way. If you want to sweeten up your potential buyers go ahead and leave some cookies out on the counter with sparkling water. This little added touch can go a long way.

Published on Wednesday, February 28, 2018