When a real estate agent takes buyers around to a see a house, one of the first questions a buyer usually asks – before they even get out of the car – is: will the owner be home? This question gets asked a lot, and for a simple reason: buyers avoid home owners.
For someone who is selling by owner, this can be something of a problem. As a For Sale by Owner, you’ll be conducting all the showings personally – after all, nobody knows your home better than you, right? But consider the fact that in general, buyers don’t like to work with owners. If a buyer had a choice, nine times out of then they’d rather that the owner weren’t home, as they don’t want to feel like they’re intruding.
When an owner is home, buyers often hurry through the house and get out of there more quickly than they otherwise would. Buyers want to have private conversations – between themselves, and with their agent, if they have one (and they probably do). When the owner is around, buyer will feel like they can’t talk freely – and that makes them uncomfortable.
When you’re selling your home, the last thing you want to do is make your buyer feel uncomfortable in it. They want to feel like it is their home, and with the owner around, it won’t feel like that at all. It’s for this reason that most real estate agents urge the home owner to be absent while the property is being shown, which is something a For Sale by Owner cannot do, unless they want to leave unaccompanied strangers completely alone in their house.
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