How to Protect Your Privacy When Your Home is for Sale

Should you worry about protecting privacy while your home is for sale? You bet.

My late father-in-law, a journalist at the Chicago Sun Times, used to refer to himself as a “professional observer,” quoting a certain city hall reporter from the paper. Of course, you have to get the Chicago accent just right, that nasal tone, to understand why that statement was funny.

And may I point out, he was half serious. When a person would ask Larry how he came to know a particular fact, he would snort, nose-in-air, tongue-in-cheek, “How? Because I am a pro-FES-sional ob-ZOY-vah.”

Savvy real estate agents are professional observers as well. When agents walk into an unoccupied home, they can often easily figure out who lives there. Agents can determine the occupants’ income level, social preferences, marital status, hobbies, financial obligations, religious affiliations and more — all by looking around. By observing.

And you can bet those agents use that information when their buyers write offers . . . read more about Protecting Privacy.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• Selling in a Buyer's Market
  
• Need a Reason to Sell?
  
• Selling Contingent on Finding Another Home

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