Listing your home in the near future? Perhaps a sign is already in the yard. No matter what stage of the listing process you are in, these safety tips will help you to provide a safer environment for your family and those visiting your home.
During these times, the safety of our clients, your families, and the people we all come in contact with is our top priority. To help you achieve the goal of selling your home in the safest manner possible, we’ve consulted with other top real estate professionals to compile the following list of tips.
*We understand that the situation in our community is constantly developing, and will be updating this post to reflect the latest updates.
1. Sanitize all hard surfaces in your home frequently. This is a good practice for any household, and especially important on days when showings are scheduled. According to the CDC, there have not been any known cases of COVID-19 being transmitted through the surfaces in your home, but evidence suggests that novel coronavirus may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials.
2. Leave all interior doors open. This is meant to limit the amount of contact that visiting agents and their prospective buyers will have in your home. If you would like to go a step further, you can also put cling wrap on your door handles and change daily.
3. Provide hand sanitizer for people entering your home. We understand that supply is short and not everyone is in a position to provide it. If you are able, this is another best practice for anyone entering your home. If you are out of hand sanitizer, an alternative is to have soap and paper towels out for guests to wash their hands.
4. Set clear procedures for visitors touring your home. This can be as simple as a printed sheet of directions placed on your countertop or in your entryway instructing buyers to not use bathrooms, wash their hands, and leave doors open. It shows anyone visiting your home that you take their safety seriously, and is a great way to set your expectations up front.
5. Establish or maintain communication with your neighbors. We’re seeing neighborhoods creating everything from Facebook groups to text chains. This provides a way to know how your community is being affecting by the spread of COVID-19, and allows for you to take further preventative measures should you need to.
6. Attempt to prevent overlapping showings. One thing we are doing for our seller clients is blocking time around showings as they are scheduled to limit interaction and allow buyers to feel comfortable as they tour your home.
7. Go virtual. We are happy to provide listing presentations and can walk through listing paperwork over video chat. We frequently conduct virtual showings for our buyer clients, as are many other agents. The entire real estate industry is getting creative in their use of technology in regards to showings, and we’ll be keeping an eye on developments in the space.
8. Wash your hands frequently. You’ve surely heard this plenty of times by now, but it remains an effective means of protecting yourself and those around you.
9. Monitor your health. If you are feeling under the weather, we recommend that your self quarantine and notify your agent so they can place a block on showing requests until you have recovered.
If you have any questions about safely listing your home, we are here to help. You can call us at 972-608-0777 or request a call here on the website at https://vanpooleproperties.com/contact-us/.
