Make your home easy to show.  Unless there is a tenant in it, 24 hours showing notice to show a home in the current Seattle market is unreasonable.  I completely understand how hard it is to have your home on the market - I had mine on a few years ago and it drove me crazy.  It is especially difficult to try and keep you home clean with kids in the picture.  My kids never picked up anything and it was always me running around like a crazy woman to clean up before a showing. It is unfortunately just part of the deal when you go to list your home for sale.

 

Seattle Buyers Out There:  There is another side of it, you know.  We get calls from buyers with almost no notice and they are hot to see a great Seattle house.  We try everything we can to make accommodations and give sellers as much notice as possible, but sometimes it just isn't doable.   Yesterday I tried to put together just a preview tour and was hit with five houses out of the seven I needed to see that I could not get into on the same day.  None had tenants. Do you want to sell your home?

 

Seattle real estate is challenging in 2010, but if we all work together and try to be as courteous as possible, both for showings and notices, then we should be able to see these homes in a timely fashion.

 

Oh!  One last tip - When you have a buyer coming to see your home, do the dishes and vacate the premises so their agent can show them around.  The biggest misconception is that you know your house the best and can therefore show it to them in the best light.  They really do not want to be shown the hosue by the seller.  It makes every single buyer I have ever had this happen to extremely uncomfortable.  Instead of enjoying your home and trying to picture themselves in it, they instead are trying to get out ASAP.