Tips for Protecting Your Home While Selling It

Selling a home can be a nerve wracking time in a person’s life. The last thing any seller would want is a burglary of personal items or of a home stager’s furnishings.

To keep your home safe while selling it — whether you are doing open houses and whether you are living in the home for sale or not — here are some tips to ward off predators.

13 Tips for Protecting Your Home While Selling It

1. Good four–corner exterior lighting is important, particularly when the yard is obscured by shrubbery or dark areas. A home owner can install flood lights to illuminate the walls and to expose anyone next to the home.
2. Solidly built gates and properly built fences are the first line of defense against illegal or unwanted entry. Equip all gates with good locks and use them.
3. Shrubbery can be an asset and hindrance. Be sure to prune large trees so their limbs don’t provide roof access or second–story window access. Keep shrubs trimmed below window sills and low around entrances.
4. Use shrubs or plants with prickly leaves or thorns to act as a natural barrier but also look nice.
5. All exterior wooden doors should be of solid core or panel construction with a thickness of at least one and 3/4 inches. For added security, metal doors are advisable.
6. Doorknob locks offer no security. Defeating the doorknob lock is one of the most common means of forced entry. All exterior doors should have a deadbolt lock mounted in a solid core door.
7. Do not leave curtains open in the home so your furnishings are on display to passing strangers.
8. Engrave belongings with your driver’s license number whenever practical.
9. Burglars often try to find out if anyone is home by phoning. If you get several suspicious “wrong number” calls or “nobody–at–the–other–end” calls, alert the police.
10. Do not keep large sums of cash around the house.
11. Request that your local Police Department perform a security inspection of your home.
12. Have a neighbor take in your newspapers and mail, and even park a car in your driveway.
13. Keep lights on timers.

These tips are provided to HomeGain Realtor members as part of its fourth annual real estate Agent Appreciation Campaign 2009.

Thank to the Oakland Police Department for their safety tips. Source: http://www.oaklandpolice.com/crimprev/resburg.html