Showing Homes: The Details That Matter
You have your real estate license, your BrightMLS membership, your Supra eKey, your ShowingTime account and your signed Buyer Agency Agreement. You’re ready to show some homes!
All you have to do is unlock a door and let your clients in. What could be so hard about this? Some buyers may feel like this is all you’re doing, but we know there is so much more going on, right?
At a bare minimum, you need to make sure you read the showing instructions provided by the listing agent in ShowingTime and read the agent remarks in Bright. Pro tip: Print out the MLS sheet and write the instructions on it. If showing multiple homes, print them all, put them in order of your showings, write the start and end times of each showing and write the agents instructions on each page. Is that too old school? Maybe. But I like to have the info right in front of me and not have to fumble on my phone looking for instructions, combos and lockbox locations.
If you don’t read the instructions and make notes, you may miss that there is an alarm that you have to disarm. If you don’t have this information in front of you, you may not have time to look up the instructions on your phone before the cops show up.
Sometimes agents are early and sometimes they are late. You should notify the listing agent or ShowingTime if your timing is changing.
Continuing with the bare minimum duties, you should follow the instructions of whether or not to turn lights off. If no instructions are provided, then turn off any lights you turn on. You can also reach out to the listing agent if you have questions. If you open an exterior door, make sure it is closed and locked before leaving. Your clients are taking the house in and they are not typically concerned about locking doors or turning lights off, so you need to follow them around and take care of this.
Pro-tip: Don’t open blinds. Too often they are not installed well, and they could come crashing down. Just peak through, lift them away from the window if you want to look at the window, but don’t pull on the cord.
Don’t adjust the thermostat. Thermostats can be surprisingly complicated and hitting the buttons can cause problems. You may accidentally leave the home at an extreme hot temperature, or you may turn the system off during a deep freeze. Just don’t touch it and advise your clients not to touch it.
It’s best not to use the bathroom during a showing. Sometimes the water is turned off and then you’re leaving an unflushed mess. Even if the water is on, things can happen, toilets can get clogged, people can be messy.
If your client’s 5-year-old decides it’s time to go, you can’t easily stop it, so just check the bathroom when they’re finished. Don’t leave a mess, and if there is a mess, let the listing agent know what happened.
Sometimes things break. I’ve seen pictures knocked off the wall with a shoulder, I’ve seen front doors forced open and I’ve definitely seen blinds pulled down. I even had a prospective buyer back into my seller’s car. Anything out of the ordinary should be reported to the listing agent to figure out who is responsible for damages.
If you’re curious if there is hardwood under the carpet, ask the listing agent or look in closets to see if you can find exposed wood. Don’t pull the carpet up from the carpet tack strips. Don’t pull loose wallpaper off the wall. These things happen, especially in vacant homes and they should not. If something looks damaged, don’t poke it and make it worse. Use your eyes, not your hands.
When leaving, make sure the exterior doors are locked and if all the lights are supposed to be off, make sure they’re off. I know buyers can be distracting and you’re trying to manage all of these tasks and answer their questions, give your feedback, get their feedback. But take a moment to secure the home. The most common complaint I get is that the agent left the door unlocked when they left.
Give feedback to the listing agent after the showing. Just a little something is fine, the sellers want it, the agent wants it, it’s part of the process.
What can you do as a listing agent to prevent this stuff? You may consider calling or messaging showing agents before their showing if there is something very critical to note, like an alarm, or an annoyed seller because agents keep leaving the door unlocked. And warn your sellers before the showing process begins.
Let them know that common annoyances to expect are lights being left on when they are not supposed to be on and doors being left unlocked. That agents can be early or late. Basically, the whole process is incredibly inconvenient for the seller, so make sure they know that you know this and you prepare them for it.
One more pro-tip for listing agents: Put the key on a key fob when you put it in the lockbox. A key without a key fob when dropped can bounce into the landscaping and be lost forever (true story), or it can slip into a 4-inch-deep crack between the house and the sidewalk (true story) or it can be forgotten in a pocket and taken away (true story).
One last pro-tip: You are a professional door opener. Don’t let the lock get the best of you. You need to be able to jiggle and finagle locks, not all of them are easy. Don’t give up. And know that some door handles have to be lifted up in order to lock the door. And sometimes there are toe-kick locks or high locks on sliding doors, don’t try to force it if it’s not moving, check for these locks or the old stick in the track. And if a closet door seems stuck, push down on the doorknob when opening, which often releases it from the top. Don’t manhandle it, just use a little finesse.
All of this feedback is based on real life showing issues. When you are showing homes to your client, you are doing a whole lot more than unlocking a door. Don’t forget this.
