Back at the end of September I wrote a post entitled: “Behaviour When Shopping For A New Home”. The post was based on a then recent experience and was intended to shed some light on what was acceptable behaviour when you’re in someone else’s home. This is the second (and final) post based upon the same experience and deals with acceptable behaviour once you have made the deal on your new home, have removed all your Buyers’ conditions, and are awaiting possession of your new home.

Probably the most important thing to consider when waiting to take possession of your new home is ‘Do Not Disturb’. The people from whom you have purchased your new home still own it! That’s right — you have no business lurking around their home, no business knocking on their door, and certainly no business trying to gain entry to their home.

The people selling are not your friends (usually). The people selling are not looking after your home. It’s their home and they too have a million-and-one things to complete. They’re moving too, remember?

Sure it’s okay to drive by the home that will soon be yours. It’s even okay to go for a walk in your soon-to-be new neighbourhood. You’re excited; that’s normal. What’s not normal is stalking the current owners.

Under certain circumstances it may be acceptable to contact the sellers to seek permission to drop by — but you absolutely do not contact the sellers directly. Let’s say you just realized you forgot to take measurements for some new window coverings and you need the measurements to place an order. Now what? Contact your REALTOR® and ask him or her to contact the sellers’ REALTOR® to see if it would be okay to stop by and take measurements. If the sellers say ‘yes’ then have the two REALTORS® schedule an appointment for you and make sure you go with your REALTOR®.

Again, it should be common sense — especially if you’ve given it any thought at all.

///…CP

Hopefully this post doesn’t come across too rant-like, soap box-ish, or otherwise disjointed…but here goes.

So you want to, need to, have to, or have otherwise chosen to list your home for sale…

You’ve completed those little maintenance things that require attention.
You’ve cleaned/ de-cluttered your home so that it shows it’s best.
You’ve interviewed several REALTORS® to ensure you have the best person on the job.

…right?

Judging by my experience this past weekend, some consumers are still either: a) willing to accept poor service (despite having hired a professional); b) not doing their homework ahead of time (i.e. reading my blog posts); c) feel as though they don’t have a choice; or d) don’t really want to sell.

So what happened this weekend that brought me to write this particular post?

I have Clients looking for their next home. They are looking for a home that is less than ten years old, offers 1,400 to 1,800 square feet, and is priced between $350,000 and $450,000. After wading through the tons of homes that fit their criteria, I narrowed the list of contenders down to fifteen homes to show this weekend.

Here’s where my “fun” begins…

Throughout Friday afternoon and evening I spent time building a showing schedule for the coming weekend, which included contacting home sellers and REALTORS® to schedule my appointments – as per the showing instructions on each listing. [Did you catch that? Contacting the home seller(s) to schedule an appointment -- what the...?]  Of the fifteen homes I wanted to show to my Clients, there were three of them we never did get in to see because either the home seller or the REALTOR® failed to return my repeated calls/ paged requests to show.

[Here's the soap box-ish rant-like part...] Suffice to say I don’t understand this at all. Why on earth would you hire a REALTOR® to sell your home and then personally field the calls from other REALTORS® to show your home? I know under certain circumstances it may (initially) make sense to take the calls yourself (e.g. shift worker, home-based business operator) — but isn’t that why you hired a REALTOR®; instead of going For Sale By Owner? I can’t believe how many of my colleagues have home owner(s) taking phone calls at home, at work, and on their cell phones to schedule appointments to show their own home.

Shouldn’t that be part of the service your REALTOR® provides?

[Back to the purpose of this post...] If 20% of home owners and/ or REALTORS® don’t avail themselves for scheduling viewing appointments (as was the ratio for my Clients and I this weekend), do they really want to sell?

If you really do want to sell your home, don’t you think prospective buyers need to be able to get in and view your home?

///…CP

You wouldn’t think a blog post on what is acceptable behaviour when home shopping would be necessary — evidently my experiences of late suggest otherwise.

Allow me to begin with a bit of background. When I first take prospective buyers into other peoples’ homes, I tell them to pretend they are test-driving a car. Look in the fridge, check out the pantry, open the closets, flush the toilets, run the faucets — you get the picture. They can and should check any and all items that are likely to form part of the purchase.

If my Clients are seriously considering buying the home then they are going to want to make sure they have ample water pressure. They better make sure there is enough closet space. Sometimes checking the fridge and pantry for rotten food and mouldy dried goods can give some insight into the present owners and their relative level of cleanliness. The house appears clean — but is it really?

So what is unacceptable? It should be obvious but just in case…it is not acceptable to look in dresser drawers, jewellery boxes, china cabinets, hutches, sideboards, and night stands. It is also unacceptable to look through peoples’ mail, magazine racks, and underwear drawers. In other words, you are not there to snoop into the lives of complete strangers. You are there to determine whether this house is a suitable fit for you and whether or not it is a likely candidate to become your next home.

It’s common sense people…at least it should be.

///…CP