Putting Your Home on the Market - Managing Your Pets

When it comes to putting your home on the market for sale, it is important that you have all of the proverbial pieces of the puzzle in order. In this regard, if you are a pet owner, there are specific steps that you will need to take in advance of putting your home on the market for sale. By following these steps, you will be able to best ensure that your home is in the best possible position to sell.

In this day and age, and as has been the fact for years, the majority of homeowners in the United States (including in the Tampa real estate market) have at least one pet in their homes. More often than not, the pet of choice is a cat or a dog.

If you are a person who has a pet of some sort in his or her home, you need to understand that for a good number of people looking for homes, the presence of a pet in a residence is a negative factor. There are even a notable number of people in the market for a home who simply will not consider purchasing a home in which a pet previously resided.

Perhaps the most significant factor that you need to understand when it comes to managing pets in your home in advance of putting your home on the market for sale is to make sure that all pet related odors are completely under control. Home sales experts nearly universally agree that nothing works to put off a potential buyer more quickly that unpleasant smells or odors in the home, particularly pet odors.

With this in mind, you will want to make sure that you limit the area in the residence that pets will have access when you are working to sell your home. Moreover, you will want to make certain that such things as litter boxes for cats are maintained in a completely and thoroughly clean state. Indeed, this may require you to empty a litter box daily and wash it out at the same time.

Even though you may find your pet as cute as a button, that does not mean a potential buyer is going to appreciate your companion animal at all. As a result, you must make certain that any pet that you have is out of site when potential buyers will be visiting your home. Indeed, you really will want to seriously consider making sure that the pets are off the property before a potential buyer arrives.

There is also a liability issue to consider in regard to pets on the property when a potential buyer is checking out the residence. There are an unfortunate number of cases in which a potential buyer ends of being injured by a dog or even a cat. Pets respond to these potential buyers as strangers and can respond accordingly.

Lance Mohr is a full time, full service licensed broker associate with Keller Williams Realty. He has many years of experience helping families buy and sell Tampa Real Estate You can get more information about Tampa Realtors on my website. Please feel free to copy any of his articles as long as you credit the author and retain the link to his website above.

E-mail this post

1 Comment

  1. va refi said,

    January 5, 2008 @ 2:32 pm

    If you have pets please please clean the carpets before showing it to potential buyers! I have seen so many homes that could have easily sold had the owners simply cleaned up after thier pets. Do it I promise you will sell your home faster and for more money! Don’t let it smell like animal!!

RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI