Behind Door # 1 . . . .

A Realtor never knows what will be on the other side of a door.  I always hope for an up-to-date, Q-Tip clean, and tastefully decorated home.  And I also hope that if the homeowner is home - they have their clothes on!

Here's my routine when showing a home:  Follow the showing instructions in the listing, such as calling the owner and/or the listing agent. If owner doesn't answer, leave my phone number in a voice mail so they can call me if the showing time I propose doesn't work for them.  When arriving at the home, ring the doorbell and wait, ring it again and wait, knock loudly on the door and wait.  Open the door and yell "REALTOR" to alert I'm entering the home.

In spite of these best efforts, I still catch people unaware.  There was the man sitting on his couch, no shirt, beer belly, refilling his belly with beer.  There were the three little boys alone in the living room watching cartoons who were dressed - from the waist up.  There was the woman who, after we had already entered the house, finally came upstairs from the family room, flushed and disheveled.  As we toured the home and went down to the family room, there was a man, also flushed and disheveled.  They were both pretty happy though.

One time I had made an appointment, the wife answered the door and invited us in, chatted with us, etc. When we went upstairs, the husband was standing in the master bedroom with only a towel on - yelling at us for being in his house . Gosh, I assumed he wanted to sell his house considering it was in the multiple listing service.  This was when the market was dead and he was lucky to even get a showing.

One particularly memorable incident occurred in Reston with my client, his little son, and both of his parents.  We had an appointment.  The lights in the house were all on.  I went through my routine before entering.  We toured the main floor, went downstairs and outside.  They really liked the house so they were spending a lot of time looking at everything and talking about it. Back up to the main floor, sounding like a herd of elephants.  Just as we were about to go upstairs, the homeowner starts screaming at us from up there.  She had been in the shower the whole time and hadn't heard us.  We profusely apologized and hurried out - everyone's nerves rattled.  Thank goodness we hadn't made it upstairs and opened the bathroom door while she was still in the shower! She was m-a-d,  until we bought the house.

My advice to Sellers is not to include the deadbolt key in the lockbox, so that you can lock that during the time you need privacy while at home.  And in general, people - keep your clothes on!