Sellers: Why it makes sense to leave your house during open inspections

Sometimes property owners tell us they want to be on hand at inspections of their home so that if any potential buyers have questions about the property, they can answer them.
There are many reasons why it makes sense for sellers to absent themselves during open inspections. Here are a few:

• Even if a seller tries to be inconspicuous, buyers get intimidated when the owner is in the house. The buyer feels like he or she is ‘intruding’ and usually will cut an inspection short, even if they like the house.
• Instead of the buyer leaving the property thinking about the pros or cons of the house, they will usually be remembering ‘the house where the owner stayed’.
• From the seller’s perspective, it can be confronting to think you’ve met the person who will buy your home. What do you do? Make coffee for them? Serve biscuits? This makes the sale personal rather than objective.
• Following on from our point above: if the buyer goes on to make an offer on your property, it is human nature to feel that once you’ve shown your hospitality, the buyer’s offer should also be a ‘hospitable’ one. If the offer isn’t as good as you anticipated you feel an emotional response, such as: “the offer was disappointing” or “that low offer was insulting”…
• Some sellers say they worry about security during the inspection. Our answer to that is, take away (or put away) anything of sentimental value (jewellery/art/collectibles) and trust your agent (and often his/her assistant) to keep an eye out on your behalf.

The short story is: you are employing the services of a skilled real estate agent to conduct your property transaction on your behalf. Buyers prefer to keep the arrangements at arms’ length – for good reason. Sellers, it will work better for you too if you keep your distance.