Many of us will leave for summer vacation soon and will be leaving your house unattended. Unattended does not mean unsecured.
For starters do not advertise that you are going to be gone. In the time of social media most of us tend to announce that we are leaving. One thing you should consider doing before you are leaving is creating a home inventory. When something does happen, it will be difficult to remember what you had, where you bought it, and how much you paid for it? I don’t think I would remember all of this and when you read through the small print of your homeowner’s insurance policy they require you to have an up to date home inventory.
There are steps you can take to leave an illusion that you are still home while you are gone and having fun. They are:
- Putting table lamps and other equipment on timers and have them turn off and on several times during the day and night.
- Keep a radio or TV on.
- When you have dogs you might record them when they bark and have their bark play on a timer once or twice a day.
- Hold your mail. You no longer have to go to your post office for that. They have on the Apple and Google play store an app you can use, even last minute, to hold your mail.
- Ask a friend or family member if they just could check on the house once or twice while you are gone. This will serve as an illusion that you have guests coming and going.
- When you still have a newspaper delivered to your house ask the newspaper delivery to be halted during the time your are gone. When this is not possible ask a friend or family to drive by the house to pick up the paper. First obvious sign of a house being vacant is a pile of newspapers in the drive.
- Consider asking your neighbor if they could put your trashcans on the curb at trash day and move them later in the evening back to the house.
- Keep your curtains, blinds, and shutters closed so no one can peek into the house to see if you are home.
There are many more ideas you can do to lessen the possibility of being broken into while on vacation. Consider calling your insurance agent, I bet they have tons of ideas for you.
Not knowing what they can afford in the beginning they begin looking at homes online that are priced higher than their financial ability and sooner or later they become disappointed when they discover they cannot have the home of their dreams. With so many homes now listed as a short sale and REO’s (bank owned), a pre- approval is a must to submit an offer.
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When you use pictures for marketing make sure that the picture describes exactly what you intend. You do not want to communicate something negative when your intention was to communicate something positive or welcoming.