Another issue to consider whether you do allow open houses is safety. It didn’t use to be this way, but things have changed. There are individuals and groups (not honest people) that scour the newspapers for open houses. And these people have no intention of purchasing your home. Their sold purpose in to pilfer your home of anything they can easily carry. They could also be casing for a future burglary. Your agent in conducting an open house has all of the best intentions, but in many cases they can’t control it. How does it work? Individuals will enter the home as prospective buyers or in groups and will pretend not to know each other. There could be 10 or 15 people that show up almost at once. The poor agent just can not watch them all. Usually one will entice the agent into a conversation and that is all that is needed to divert the agent’s attention to the others. What are they after? It is anything they conceived of value that they can easily conceal. One their favorites are prescription drugs found in the medicine cabinet, jewelry, papers laying around with credit card numbers and they will look in drawers too. So if you do have an open house, make sure you take the proper precautions. Lock-up valuables and put them in a safe place or at least take them with you while you are out of the home. Even if you don’t have an open house there are still other safety precautions one should take after listing your home for sale. Please take a look at these safety tips.