3 Home Safety Tips For Your Open House

Sell­ing a house is a process that involves hav­ing a lot of vis­i­tors com­ing through your home dur­ing an open house. This can increase your chance of sell­ing, but it also puts you at risk for theft and oth­er crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. Here are three home safe­ty tips for your open house that can pro­tect you and your valu­ables.

Know­ing how to iden­ti­fy unwant­ed vis­i­tors and keep your belong­ings safe will help you get the most out of your open hous­es with­out any unwant­ed sur­pris­es.

Mon­i­tor Vis­i­tors

The first step in mon­i­tor­ing your vis­i­tors is to have a sign-in log upon entry. You can ask for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion such as a driver’s license to con­firm the iden­ti­ty of vis­i­tors and have some­thing to ref­er­ence in case any issue aris­es.

Don’t hes­i­tate to ask for infor­ma­tion such as their phone num­ber or cur­rent home address. Be firm in your pol­i­cy should any­one refuse. It’s com­plete­ly under­stand­able and com­mon­place to request this infor­ma­tion when let­ting unknown vis­i­tors inside your home.

You can also make a note of their vehi­cles and license plate num­bers for fur­ther iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. It’s a good idea to have some­one with you who can help mon­i­tor cars that arrive at your prop­er­ty.

Be cau­tious when deal­ing with unknown real estate agents as well. A real agent should be able to access the lock­box to your prop­er­ty. If an agent arrives, ask them to open the lock­box to con­firm that they have a license to be there.

Keep Your Valu­ables Out of Sight

Most home­own­ers have valu­ables through­out their entire home. If you’re hav­ing an open house, take time before the event to take all of your valu­able pos­ses­sions and put them out of sight. If you have a secure loca­tion where you can lock them, such as a safe, then keep all of the items there.

Some com­mon items that you should put away are:

• Elec­tron­ics
• Jew­el­ry
• Art­work
• Per­son­al doc­u­ments with sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion
• Cred­it cards
• Keys
• Pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion

It’s very easy for a vis­i­tor to pick up an object and take it out of your home, espe­cial­ly if there is a large num­ber of peo­ple at one time.

Have Sup­port

You can also pro­tect your­self by hav­ing oth­ers present with you dur­ing an open house. If fam­i­ly mem­bers aren’t avail­able, ask one of your neigh­bours or a friend to be present dur­ing the event.

If some­one arrives while you are alone, don’t be afraid to request a dif­fer­ent time to show the prop­er­ty. Your safe­ty comes first, and if a per­son is tru­ly inter­est­ed in buy­ing your prop­er­ty they’ll have no prob­lem resched­ul­ing.

One com­mon way that thieves take advan­tage of open hous­es is by mak­ing mul­ti­ple vis­its. They become famil­iar with the prop­er­ty, its con­tents, and entry points on the first vis­it. Keep this in mind when you show a prop­er­ty more than once to the same indi­vid­u­als.

It’s easy to get dis­tract­ed dur­ing an open house. Many vis­i­tors come and go and you’ll often be fac­ing many ques­tions at once. This is anoth­er rea­son why it’s impor­tant to have some­one else present to keep an eye on oth­er vis­i­tors.

Hav­ing the infor­ma­tion of your vis­i­tors and keep­ing your valu­ables secure will make your next open house a safe one. Put the secu­ri­ty of you and your prop­er­ty above all else to ensure that you pro­tect your­self and your home.