24-Hour Notice on Showings For a House: Is it Wise?

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Advance Showing Notice

What does 24-hour showing notice mean?

Does requiring 24-hour notice on showings make your home difficult to sell? Good questions, right?

When selling a home you occupy, it can be challenging to accommodate real estate showings. Some sellers require a 24-hour notice before any home showing to make things easier.

Unfortunately, there are downsides to the 24-hour showing notice requirement. By requiring advanced notice, you could make selling your home harder.

Real Estate agents constantly preach about things that make a home harder to sell.

The more restrictions you place on your home, the more difficult it will be to get the job done.

When selling a home, taking the emotional side out of it is crucial. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes for a moment.

Imagine a buyer calling their real estate agent to schedule showings for tomorrow on three homes they like. One of them happens to be yours. The other two houses have no restrictions.

The buyer now has to decide if they should re-arrange their schedule or pass on seeing your home for the moment.

Many sellers fail to grasp that the buyer may never see your home if they like one of the houses they visit and love. Too often in my thirty-seven years of selling real estate, I’ve seen homeowners make poor decisions with showings.

What is a 24-Hour Notice on Real Estate Showings?

It simply means a property cannot be shown without a buyer’s agent calling at least twenty-four hours before they would like to schedule a visit.

Most homes are listed in the Multiple Listing Service, which provides real estate agents showing instructions for all the listed properties.

Most properties for sale do not have a 24-hour notice requirement. Only a fraction of homes will have any advice notice requested.

Over the years, I have seen many sellers shoot themselves in the foot over silly things like making their real estate agent attend the showing. Accompanied showings are entirely unnecessary to sell a home.

They can make your house harder to sell. You are adding another hurdle that will make access to your home more difficult. Ask any real estate agent who needs to work around the listing agent’s schedule to show a house. It sucks!

Besides the scheduling hoopla, do you think a buyer and their agent want the listing agent breathing down their necks?

Frankly, they don’t. The listing agent serves no purpose in being there. People buy homes based on emotion. They either love the house or they don’t. Your real estate agent doesn’t have magical powers of persuasion.

Okay, back to twenty-four notice for showings.

Problems With 24-Hour Notice on House Showings

From the seller’s perspective, 24-hour notice can seem like a reasonable request. You have to have some time to get out of the house to ensure everything is in order, and it is nice to have a little warning before your life is disrupted.

Unfortunately, there are downsides that you may not realize, issues that can negatively impact the sale of your home.

The typical pattern of a buyer’s agent is to show a series of homes, one after the other. The agent will want to go through the showing process with as little hassle as possible. When deciding what houses to show, the agent will probably look for properties without any need for notice.

If there are six similar homes available to show, and five of them don’t require a 24-hour notice, the Realtor will probably stick to the five homes that are easily accessible. Unless the buyer expresses a specific interest in a home that needs notice, the Realtor may steer clear of it.

Often homes that sit on the market for an extended period are difficult to show.

The more difficult it is for agents to show a home, the fewer buyers will walk through the door. Click To Tweet

Fewer buyers mean fewer opportunities, which lowers the odds of a buyer choosing to make an offer. A 24-hour notice is not necessarily unreasonable, but it can provide an extra hurdle for agents and buyers.

Common Reasons For a 24-Hour Notice on Showings

There are times when 24-hour notice is acceptable or even necessary. They include:

Everyone in The Area Expects 24-Hour notice.

You may live in an area where 24-hour notice is standard. Most problems with a 24-hour notice result from losing competitiveness – if you are demanding 24-hour notice but no one else is, your house will be overlooked.

However, if all sellers ask for 24-hour notice, the playing field is leveled.

Keep in mind that twenty-four-hour notice being the norm would be unusual. Please consult with your real estate agent and listen to them.

The Home is Exceptional.

If your home is one that people will be scrambling to purchase, you can request a 24-hour notice. Of course, you want to get insight from your Realtor first – just because you expect buyers to come running does not mean they will.

Properties that are in high demand are worth waiting for.

Here is a suggestion for any seller who needs advance notice – defer your showings for 4-5 days. Deferred showings are a fantastic sales strategy beyond potential showing issues.

Here is a summary of how deferred showings work. You put your home on the market at the beginning of the week, but don’t let anyone in the door to the weekend. You are creating a buzz for your home as buyers and their agents will see it listed in MLS.

By deferring the showings, you’re increasing the odds you will end up with multiple offers. Following the traditional method of letting showings take place on the first day, it’s listed could lead to missed opportunities.

If the first buyer seeing the home makes an offer you’re willing to accept, you’ll never know if others are willing to do so.

Deferred showings give you a few more days to make your home look great without losing marketing time. Staging a house for sale can be done up until the last minute.

Lastly, it solves the problem of having advance notice for multiple showings. Hopefully, you sell the house on the first weekend.

Pets Are Present.

It is easier to sell a home when your pets are not in the house. Most Real Estate agents will recommend finding another location to keep your pets during showings. A 24-hour notice is helpful when you must relocate your pets before showings.

It is part of the advice for selling a home with pets.

Relocating pets is among the most common reasons sellers need advance notice for showings. Be sure also to check out my tips for moving with pets. The advice will make your move go a lot smoother.

Time to Prepare The Home For Showing.

Ideally, you should want to keep your home clean and picked up when it is on the market. If you have everything in order, you can show your house anytime. But there are circumstances where keeping a clean home constantly doesn’t work.

If you are in such a situation, maybe 24-hour notice is necessary to tidy up before you allow buyers into the home. Keep in mind the smaller the advanced showing notice, the better.

The House is Used For Other Activities.

Some people run their businesses out of their homes, making it difficult to vacate on short notice. A twenty-four-hour notice might be necessary if you have a small business in the house and cannot stop everything within an hour for a quick showing.

People who work out of their homes might find themselves in the middle of a conference call. Leaving on short notice would be very difficult.

Medical Issues Make Relocation on Short Notice Challenging.

Sometimes the seller of a home will have an illness or other medical issues that make it difficult or impossible to vacate the property quickly.

If you are facing such a situation, there is no choice but to demand a certain amount of notice before someone comes to view the home.

It is not uncommon for an owner to have a sick or elderly parent living with them. Sometimes you are better off just having them remain for the showing.

Consulting with your agent would make sense. They may tell you they would rather have them stay than lose the opportunity for a showing.

Make it Less Than Twenty-Four Hour Notice For Showings

One excellent compromise is to narrow the showing requirement down from twenty-four-hour notice.

For some folks having this long to prepare for a showing isn’t necessary. You might not need such an extended amount of time.

Maybe only a couple of hours’ notice is necessary?

If your issue is straightening up the house or relocating a pet, you can probably get things squared away in a few hours.

Keep in mind a test of reasonableness. The better you can do to accommodate a buyer’s schedule, the better off you will be.

Different Options for Showing a Home

There are various ways that sellers and their agents arrange showings, some of which are more competitive than others. These include:

Lockbox on a vacant property – The easiest way to show a home is to have it empty with a lock box. Then no appointment is required, and the house can be shown anytime.
Call and use a lockbox. – If the property is occupied, it is necessary to call first to notify the seller that someone is coming to view the home.
24-hour notice – The buyer’s agent contacts the seller or agent and gives 24-hour notice that the home will be shown.
Appointment with the home’s occupant – The buyer’s agent must make an appointment with the person occupying the house for a showing, whether owner or tenant.
Appointment with the seller’s agent – Some sellers request that their agent is at all the showings. By requiring the presence of the seller’s agent, the seller hopes that the agent will do a better job of selling the home than the buyer’s agent would.

Talk to Your Realtor About Your Options for Showings

If you are going to sell your home and are concerned about which option you should choose for showings, be sure to discuss your concerns with your Real Estate agent. Your agent will know what is standard for your area – maybe 24-hour showings are the norm.

Your Realtor can help you understand the pros and cons of your options and can guide you toward an arrangement that suits your unique needs while ensuring the best odds of success when selling.

Remember that fighting local trends is never a good idea if you want top dollar for your home. If you can avoid 24-hour showing notice, you’ll be better positioned to get the most showings.

Additional Helpful Home Selling Articles

Don’t make these blunders when selling a home – Michelle Gibson shares some essential things to avoid doing when you sell a house.
High-Value improvements when selling – Anita Clark shares what you can do to your property that will make a difference when it comes time to sell.
Marketing advice worth listening – Petra Norris shares helpful tips on getting your home noticed.
Great home selling advice – Kyle Hiscock shares numerous pieces of advice in a roundup of great articles.

Use the above home selling references to make great decisions when selling your property.

About the author: The above Real Estate information on the 24-hour notice for showings on the house was provided by Bill Gassett, a Nationally recognized leader in his field. Bill can be reached via email at billgassett at remaxexec.com or 508-625-0191. Bill has helped people move in and out of Metrowest towns for the last 37+ Years.

Are you thinking of selling your home? I am passionate about Real Estate and love sharing my marketing expertise!

I service Real Estate Sales in the following Metrowest MA towns: Ashland, Bellingham, Douglas, Framingham, Franklin, Grafton, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hopedale, Medway, Mendon, Milford, Millbury, Millville, Northborough, Northbridge, Shrewsbury, Southborough, Sutton, Wayland, Westborough, Whitinsville, Worcester, Upton, and Uxbridge MA.