Having thoughts about selling your family home? Pets are part of the family too (sometimes the most important part). You’re not just thinking about selling your home, you’re thinking about selling their home too.
We love pets in homes! In fact, we usually have at least one dog in our office every day. But no matter how well you look after your fluffy friend, they do tend to create a smell in the home – it’s only natural!
You might not be able to tell if your home has pet smells, but you can count on us to let you know (in the nicest way possible). We want buyers to love your place! We have heard real feedback from buyers along the lines of “We really like it… but it smells like dog. We’ll keep looking”. More often, they won’t tell us and won’t return our calls. As quickly as that, your perfect buyer is gone.
When potential buyers visit your home, it is best to minimise pet smells as much as possible. There are things you can do to help with this, and there are things we will do to help as well. We recently sold a house in Waratah where the owners were a 2 year old Dachshund named Poppy and Charlie the 5 year old Cavoodle. If you’re a buyer, you may have even visited this home, but you’d never have known what species the inhabitants were!
What can you do to help?
Cleaning:
This is an obvious one, and we know you will already have the place looking its absolute best before we start bringing buyers through. You don’t need to go overboard, but doing an extra clean of the rooms your pets spend most of their time in the day before an open home will make a huge difference.
- Vacuum carpets and rugs
- Mop hard wood floors
- Wash cushion covers
- Wash toys (especially if they get chewed on)
Sometimes sacrifices need to be made. Poppy and Charlie slept on $10 doggie beds from target… they made the tough decision to toss their beds for the sake of the sale.
Fresh air:
On the morning of your open home, open up as many windows and doors as you can to get fresh air flowing through the house. Close them back up right before you leave, and we will re-open them when we get there to set up for the open home.
Grooming:
During the time your home is on the market, a couple of extra baths and some extra brushing would not go astray. Your pup may not thank you for it, but we sure will!
Food Bowls and Kitty Litter:
Make sure you regularly replace your kitty litter. If you usually leave this in the laundry or bathroom, make sure you take it outside on open home days. Just pop them out of sight, in a garage, garden shed or even around a discreet corner. This goes for food and water bowls too, even if they’re empty they can still contribute to pet smells.
Bedding:
The most common cause of a smelly house is bed linen, even if there are no pets in the house. We always recommend linens are washed as close to the open home as possible, but if your pets are anything like Charlie and Poppy, they don’t stick to their own beds – those morning snuggles will only make things worse.
What will we do?
We will open all of the doors as soon as we arrive. Selling a house is a busy time, so if you’ve forgotten to take out the kitty litter or if there are toys lying around, we’ll pop these outside for you.
You might be tempted to light a candle or start up your essential oil infuser… Please don’t. These can often be overpowering and cause discomfort to potential buyers. We will spritz your home with a great smelling, low allergen room spray to cover up any lingering smells that might be hanging around.
What about open homes?
Open homes are a great opportunity to get your dog out for a walk, or a trip to the park. All doors and gates will be open during the open homes, and we’d hate for your pet to go on an unscheduled adventure on our watch. We understand that cats can be a little more difficult to relocate, you might be able to get away with leaving your cat at home if it’s allowed to be outdoors… But no pets in the house would be ideal.
We’ll always give you plenty of notice if we need to do a private inspection. Again, no pets would be ideal, but we can usually manage if we’re only bringing one or two people through (and your pet is friendly).
Ultimately, we want you to keep your pets with you during the sale, it’s their home too!
Don’t just take our word for it.
“Dave was great! He left Schmackos in the kitchen because we were such good puppers!”
- Poppy
“Woof woof… woofer”
- Charlie
