How to Protect Your Home during the Open House

While having an open house you should understand that total strangers will be walking around your home, looking into your closets and will be observing all your belongings. Open house is an invitation for those strangers to walk among your most prized possessions and very often with only one real estate agent present, so there are security concerns for both: homeowners and the agents themselves.

The survey by the National Association of Realtors shows that at least 40% of real estate agents had situation that made them fear for their own safety. Here are a few steps on how to safeguard your possessions.

Find the real estate agent with a good reputation and talk to him or her about security concerns and what she or he would recommend on protecting your home during the open house. If it is a multilevel house, request your agent to have an assistant or another agent so that all floors are covered at all times. Also, check with your agent on having sign-in sheets for everyone who comes into the house.Make sure to remove all prescription drugs from your medicine cabinet or any drawers and lock them up. If you happen to have some doctor’s prescription that you haven’t use yet, lock those up too. There are many cases when people were stealing drugs, sometimes a few tablets or even whole bottle of it.During the open house there should be no remotes, keys or fobs around. These are very small things and it is easy for strangers to take them and come back later on to steal something bigger.Don’t forget about jewelleries, watches and any other valuable things sitting in drawers or boxes. Lock them up while your house is on the market.Identity theft is real and should be taken into your consideration as well. Make sure all your legal, medical or personal information and related documents are securely locked. These could be financial statements, doctor’s notes, male, birth and marriage certificates, bills, cheques, passports, any types of government issued IDs, lawyer’s notes, home related documents, etc.Also, have all your small electronic devices like laptops, Ipads, Ipods, smartphones, tablets locked. These are small and easy to be stolen. Make sure all your computers are locked with a pass code.

After having the open house insist that real estate agent check all windows, door and gate to be certain that everything is locked. Don’t give a chance for strangers to return to your house later.

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