How to Keep Your Home Secure While You Are Selling It

If you’re selling a home, you probably have some concerns about how to keep it secure while real estate agents and prospective buyers are visiting your property. If no one will be occupying the house while it’s on the market, your concerns are likely to be even greater since there won’t be anyone at home every day to make sure things are secure.

There are steps you can take, however, to try to ensure that your home and your belongings remain safe while your house is on the market. For the most part common sense and logic will help you decide which items need to be stored away from prying eyes, but it never hurts to have a few reminders.

Understanding Your Security Options

One option you have is to install a security system. This may be a pretty good choice if you are going to be living in your home while it’s on the market, though there are some negatives to consider. For example, if you activate your alarm system each time you leave the house so that it can be viewed by a potential buyer, you will run the risk of having a real estate agent accidentally set the alarm off, which can get to be quite a hassle if it occurs very often.

If your home is going to be unoccupied while it is on the market, having an alarm system is generally more trouble than it’s worth. For one thing, you would have to give your security code not only to your real estate agent, but to all of the other agents who decide to show your home to prospective buyers. If the alarm were to accidentally go off while someone else is there, you would then have the added worry of trusting others to supply the alarm company with your pass code or other personal information. The bottom line is that alarm systems simply don’t offer much security if other people know your security code, so think about this option carefully before you go to the expense of having one installed.

Hide Personal Information

Just because prospective buyers are temporary guests in your home doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to look at everything they can find. Anything that reveals some personal information about you or your family members should be tucked away out of sight.

When your house is on the market, remember to put your mail away where no one can see it. People can actually learn quite a bit just by looking at the outside of many types of business envelopes such as credit card statements, past due bills, and professional affiliations. Don’t risk sharing some of your information inadvertently with strangers.

If you normally leave extra credit cards stuck in a drawer in your kitchen or one of the bedrooms, you should remove them before your house goes on the market. Find a more secure location (where prying eyes can’t snoop and find them) such as a safe or safety deposit box. You should do the same with copies of birth certificates, bank statements, and other personal papers.

Hide Your Valuables

Though it may seem an obvious thing to say, it is worth mentioning that it is very important to hide your valuables. Not only should you carefully secure your jewelry, you should also take care to hide other items that are valuable. Collectibles, expensive electronics, DVD and cd collections should all be stored away out of sight. Though it may seem a bit extreme to pack half of your house away, the effort might very well prove to be worth it in the long run.

Check Your Locks

You need to do this for your doors and windows. Check each point of entry in your home and test the stability of the locks. If a lock seems a bit weak and you believe that it could easily be broken, then you might want to spend the money to have it replaced. This is a very simple thing you can do to help secure your home and valuables, and the cost should be fairly reasonable.

If you carefully evaluate the contents of your home and take the necessary precautions to keep them safely hidden, you should be able to feel confident that your home will remain secure while you are trying to sell it.

Tags:

Leave a Reply