Keep an Eye to Safety When Selling Your Tamaqua Home

When you offer your Tamaqua home for sale, it means that strangers will be exploring every room.

 

While most of those strangers will be honest agents and honest people simply looking for a home, you need to take precautions against those who are viewing homes for illegal purposes.

 

To protect yourself, your family, and your possessions, follow these rules:

 

• Let your agent or a scheduling service set appointments with agents who want to show your home. They’ll verify that the “agent” really is an agent.
   
•  If you're at home, never let anyone in without their agent – and never let anyone in even with an agent unless they've made an appointment. They may have called 10 minutes ago, but the call at least indicates that they are who they say they are.
   
• Remember, anyone can have cards printed, so that “agent” who shows up at the door with no prior notice may not be an agent at all.
   
• If your agent uses a lock box, showings could occur when you aren't home, but only agents will have access to the lock box. If the idea of people walking in without warning makes you nervous, remove the key during the hours when you’re home. 
• If your children are home alone at specific times of day, you might want to ask your agent NOT to schedule showings during those times.
   
• If your children are at home when you're absent, be sure they know not to open the door to strangers. Of course, DO be sure to let them know if a showing is scheduled, and tell them how to behave when the agent and buyers are in the house. Kids can give away your negotiating position just as easily as you can – so NO conversing with the buyers or the agent!
   
•  Lock up your valuables. Never leave money, jewelry, or expensive items that could fit in a pocket out where they can be seen. Instead, put them in a locked drawer or safe.
   
•  Lock up your prescription medications – especially if you take pain killers or anti-depressants.
   
• Put away checkbooks, credit cards, and personal paperwork such as credit card bills, medical bills, insurance forms, and pay check stubs. Identity theft is a growing threat to everyone, so be careful.
   
• Put away treasured breakables. Some buyers bring along children who are "into everything." Others carry handbags or wear coats with big sleeves. Accidents happen.
   
• If your home has been shown, check your window latches before you leave the next time. People have been known to unlatch windows with the intent of coming back to “loot” the house at a later time.
   
• Put your pets in a crate or kennel, or take them with you. Don't trust the agent or the buyers to keep pets safely in the house - and don't trust your "always friendly" dog not to bite someone he or she considers to be an intruder.

 

It’s very unlikely that anyone with criminal intent will try to access your house. At the same time, failure to take precautions is simply unwise.

 

Better safe than sorry…