How to Handle Showings When You Work From Home

Plenty of Nashville sellers work from home, and showings can feel impossible to manage. Here's how to keep your home available without losing your workday.

When your home is on the market, showings are king. You want to say yes to as many as you can, because every showing is a shot at the right buyer. 

The tricky part is that so many of us work from home now, and saying yes to a showing in the middle of your workday can feel impossible.

Here are the three ideas I give my clients so they can say yes to showings and still show up and do a good job at work.

1. Set parameters on your showings. You don't want to cut out too much time, because a buyer in this market has a lot of options, and if they can't get in to see your house, they'll move on to the next one. But you don't have to be available all the time either. Prioritize the times buyers are most likely to want a showing. 

Set up your life so there's a block of lunchtime showings available every day. And if you have to work and can't leave, try to end your day by 4 p.m., so you're home from then on. That's kind of your worst-case scenario. This is also for people who don't have any flexibility, like if you work in the medical field where you need privacy or to be on the same IP address. Find a way to take your lunch break and be done by 4, so you can say yes to showings around that time. 

Now, if you have a little more flexibility and can work from a coffee shop, from somewhere else, even from your car, prioritize afternoon availability. If your home is available from lunchtime onward, that's much more conducive to saying yes.

“Buyers in this market have options. If they can't get into your home, they'll go buy the one they can.”

2. Require notice, and have a plan. You don't have to say yes to a showing that's happening in 10 minutes. We ask for 24 hours, and we require 2 hours' notice for our showings, so you have time to plan. But here's the deal: actually have a plan. Know exactly where you're going and where you'll be working when a showing pops up in the afternoon.

3. This is where community comes in. It doesn't matter if you have a job like mine where you're on the phone with clients a lot, or you work in a medical field where you need privacy, or you're a designer who can work anywhere. Work out a deal. There's a home vacant somewhere near you. 

Maybe it's a neighbor's home you could work from on a day when a showing gets scheduled, or a friend or someone you go to church with whose home you could use for the day. You want backup plans. 

And if you work from home, your home needs to be available as much as possible, and weekends need to be a yes every time.

My last tip is to get rid of anything that could make it impossible to say yes. Before you log in to work, make sure you're actually ready for a showing. 

If you watched my last video, I told you about my laundry hamper trick: make sure your hamper is already packed, so all you have to do is throw your laptop in it and run out the door to work from your friend's house, the coffee shop, or wherever. It's not impossible. Working from home is a huge convenience, but there are certain things that can make it an inconvenience if you let them.

In this market, we're not talking about a one-week sprint before your home's under contract. Houses are on the market for 30, 60, sometimes 90 days, so you need a plan you can sustain long enough to get offers. That's where planning ahead helps.

If you're thinking about selling and want a plan built around how you actually live and work, we'd love to help. Call or text us at (615) 315-9223, email us at homes@fykesgroup.com, or reach out through fykesrealtygroup.com. We'll take great care of you.