Absentee Sellers: Should you Stay when Your Home is Being Shown?

You have decided to sell your house and have asked the help of an agent. You discuss everything with him and one afternoon, he calls and tells you that he has a potential buyer, saying that the buyer wants to see the home without you in it.
Crazy as it sounds , this does happen occasionally. Don’t freak out and think that the buyer is out to cannibalize your property. Buyers just don’t feel comfortable poking around a place that he knows belongs to someone else.

Put yourself in the shoes of the buyer. You want to buy a home, you visit it and the moment you see it, a million and one questions come to mind. Are the electrical wirings safe? Are the tiles new? Are the toilets functioning? These and several others race through his mind. He’s eager to check out the house, especially the nooks and crannies that are usually overlooked. If you’re within the vicinity, he will feel somewhat hesitant to open cabinets, drawers, lift up carpets to check the floor, or even flush the toilet.

If you feel uncomfortable about leaving your home to the buyer and your agent, then you can reach a compromise. Offer to wait in the garden or pretend to have some task that needs to be done in the garage. Think of it like buying clothes. You don’t like the sales lady hovering behind you while you check the merchandise, do you … much more when you try it on. It works the same way, only on a much larger scale.