Rand Realty Advisory: Showing Instructions for Sellers Showing their Home

UPDATE 3.21.2020. As per the new New York and New Jersey “stay-at-home” restrictions, we are now instructing our agents to no longer provide showings of listings, and we encourage everyone to stay at home at all times unless you have “essential business.”

UPDATE: 3.17.2020. As of this writing, we have been advised that showings pose a minimal risk to our agents and clients, so long as everyone follows good hygienic protocols to protect all of us.

If you do not want to allow showings on your listing, that’s your decision and we completely respect it. We work for you. And we certainly echo the advice we are getting from authorities to isolated at home as much as possible.

But if you do want to keep your home on the market, here are the protocols you should follow:

1. No more than one group of three people.

Showings should be for one group at a time, with no more than three total people going through a home at the same time — all of whom should keep distance from one another.

2. Stay home for the showing, but keep your distances

Usually, we think that sellers should absent the home during a showing, but in these circumstances you should be home to make sure that the buyers conduct a hygienically sanitary showing. If you do stay home, though, keep your distance! It’s natural to want to shake hands with people at the showing, but you need to resist that impulse. Keep a distance of 5-6 feet from other individuals throughout the showing, and don’t touch. Don’t even bump elbows, because that puts you too close. Use the “hand over heart” greeting.

3. Have rubber gloves for showings, if possible

Ideally, you should have rubber gloves for buyers and buyer agents to put on during showings. They can put the gloves on when they enter the home, and then take them off and dispose of them when they leave. That ensures they’re not making any contact with anything in the home. Keep the gloves near the front door, along with a trash can where they can be thrown out when the visitors are done.

4. Have sanitizing products ready

If you can’t have gloves handy, have hand sanitizer and/or wipes handy in case the buyers didn’t bring any (they should, but you never know). If you don’t have gloves, put out napkins that visitors can hold in their hands to open doors and drawers. And make sure you have soap in a bathroom near the entrance, so you can ask people to wash their hands when they enter.

5. Open windows

If it’s not too cold, and the weather is cooperating, open some windows in the house to get the air flowing.

6. When the showing is over, wipe everything down.

For your own peace of mind, you should take a disinfecting wipe and wipe down everything when your visitors leave. That includes door handles, cabinet and drawer pulls, and any surfaces they might have touched.