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Pets & Selling Your House


Blog by Matt Carre | August 1st, 2011


So you've decided to sell your house. You've managed to get the kids to clean up their rooms, you followed all my staging tips and your favourite Real Estate Agent's sign is on the lawn – but what about Fido, Fee Fee and Gus the fish? When you have pets you have to think about what you will do with them during showings and how they could affect the sale of your home.

If your pets are quiet then usually it is fine if they stay home during a showing (don't worry about strapping Gus' fish bowl into the car). If your furry friend barks a lot – especially at strangers, it's probably best to get him out of the house. I showed a condo with a small dog once and the little guy was so scared of us that he barked the entire time we were there. I couldn't even carry on a conversation with my client and we left fairly quickly. If your pet is a bit of Houdini you might want to take him with you or put him in a pet house of some kind. When another agent tells me "watch out for the cat, he likes to escape" I get a horrible feeling. It's not like it's just me going into the house, there is at least one, usually two (or maybe more) people following behind me. The door is going to be wide open and I want to focus on showing the property not watching out for a cat darting out the door. On top of that I don't want to chase him down the street. At the end of the day I don't want to be responsible for something happening to someone's pet so please make sure they are safe.

If you clean your bathroom and kitchen make sure you are cleaning your pet's too. Litter boxes, backyard poop bombs, it all needs to be cleaned up because bad smells can really turn off a buyer. As far as food and water dishes, just make sure they are tidy and not in the way – no one wants to kick over the water dish. We love our pets like our kids so in turn we must clean up after them like we do our kids.