How to Keep Living in Your Home While It Is Being Shown (Without Losing Your Mind)

When someone wants to see the house, a showing gets scheduled. I coordinate those appointments and let you know before each one, sometimes with more notice and sometimes with less. From the start you tell me which hours work and which do not. If there is a time in your week when everyone is home, we block it off.

Here is what is good to know:

• The more open hours you give, the more people can see the house. The fewer, the fewer. It is your decision and it can be adjusted as we go.
• While the house is being shown, you are not there. You head out with the family, the pets, or the laptop. The people touring need to feel like they are in a home where they can picture themselves living, and with the owner standing there you can tell they feel awkward.

Before the first showing, gather in one place whatever you do not want anyone to see or touch:

• Papers with personal information, account statements, bank documents
• Cash and jewelry
• Medications
• Spare keys and cards
• Computers and small valuables

A drawer with a lock, a box in the closet, or something you take with you in the car. What matters is that it stays put away all the time, not just when you remember.

Pets. Take them out of the house during the showing, or take them with you. Even calm ones can scare some people or trigger allergies, and a barking dog pulls attention away from the house. If they cannot leave, keep them in a crate or a closed bedroom and tell me so I can mention it at the showing.

Smells. You do not notice them because you live there. What weighs the most is the trash, the litter box, damp laundry, and strong cooking the same day. Take the trash out before the showing and open windows if the weather allows.

Daily clutter. Dishes in the sink, shoes by the door, clothes on the bed. The house does not have to look like a magazine. It has to be clean and clear.

If someone works from home. That is the hardest one. The best approach is to agree on two or three blocks of hours when the house can be shown and work away from home during those blocks, or to leave the desk tidy at the end of each day.

When I tell you someone is coming, this is all there is:

1. Dishes in the dishwasher and kitchen counters wiped
2. Beds made
3. Trash out
4. Entryway floor clear, shoes and backpacks put away
5. Lights on and blinds open
6. Pets and valuables out of sight

If you do it the same way every time, it stops being an effort. It becomes a habit of the week.

This is where it ties into the plan. If you know the approximate date you are moving, you know how long you have to keep the routine going. A short stretch with showings is manageable. An open-ended stretch with no date wears you down, and that is when people start dropping the price just to be done.

That is why the plan on paper puts the sale and the purchase together before the sign goes up. When you sell and already know where you are moving, the routine has an end.

Living in a home that is for sale is a season, not a way of life. It does not guarantee anything, and I cannot promise how long it will take or what it will sell for. What I can do is make sure you know ahead of time what it will look like, with the simplest routine possible.

What would your week look like with the house on the market?

Send me on WhatsApp who lives in your home, whether you have pets, and who works from home, and I will tell you how I would set up the showing schedule. No commitment, nothing to sign.

I am Veronica Yeary, a REALTOR in Dallas-Fort Worth. I sell your home and find the next one with a single plan, and the whole transaction is with me, start to finish.

469-441-8890 · call, text or WhatsApp · veronica@veronicayeary.com