When selling your home, especially if you’re doing a for sale by owner (FSBO), how often do you think about the safety of your home, your property, and your family? It can be a bit daunting to have strangers walking through your house when you’re not there. This is where a real estate showing service comes into play.
What is a Real Estate Showing Service?
There are a number of different real estate showing services. Here at BlueMatch we use either Showing Time or Centralized Showing Service. These companies help control who has access to your house when it’s on the market.
One of the most important features of these services is that they vet realtors, and make sure that only licensed realtors can access your home. The companies have a verification process that ensures random people can’t request a showing at your house.
These real estate showing services also track the agents who access your home and what time they are there. That way if something goes wrong–if something is stolen or broken–you can easily find out which agent was there. This ensures that realtors are accountable for their clients when they’re in your home. It also means that you have a way to correct or resolve any issues that arise.
These companies also give you control over showings. Agents have to go through a request process in order to see your home. As the seller, you have the ability to accept or reject any showing request. Realtors don’t receive access information to your home (i.e., lockbox codes) until you approve their request.
Real Estate Showing Services and Seller Safety
From a logistical standpoint, the benefit of a real estate showing service becomes clear pretty quickly. However, there’s also the safety element to consider. If you’re not using a showing service, either because you’re doing a FSBO or have an agent who doesn’t want to use one, you’re increasing the degree of risk associated with selling your home.
Most FSBO sellers don’t vet any of the agents who bring clients to see their home. That means that FSBO sellers are easy targets for fraudsters and other criminal activity. A scam artist can easily forge documents to make them appear to be legitimate real estate agents.
While some real estate companies claim to offer their own showing services, it’s worth vetting that service for yourself. It’s pretty common for one real estate office to just call up another and ask for a showing.
This situation can go one of two ways: 1. The seller’s office can simply give the buyer’s agent the home access information, or 2. The seller’s office can refer the buyer’s agent to a showing service, where the need to have an account and be verified to gain access to your home.
If nothing else, a showing service provides sellers, especially FSBO sellers, peace of mind in the sales process.
If you’d like to learn more about real estate showing services, how they work, and how they keep you safe in the home sale process, feel free to contact us here at BlueMatch.
