Open House Etiquette for Home Buyers

Because I write for a national homebuying website on About.com, I get emails from people all over the country. This morning I received a note from Helen, a distraught homeowner: “I would appreciate your comments on homebuying clients upon seeing through your house for sale without asking to use the washroom, making a mess and using the clean hand towels. I cannot for the life of me think that a person could be so inconsiderate. My question is how would you handle the situation without being discourteous or rude?”

Dear Helen: I would chase their car down the street and beat on the trunk with an Armenian cucumber.

My advice is if you live in Sacramento and decide to grow Armenian cucumbers, please know they are very prolific. We have a garden bed of these cucumbers behind our garage in Land Park. The vines run the entire length of the garage to the south, turn the corner and are creeping along the west side of the garage. When you see an Armenian cucumber in the grocery store, the cuke is probably about a foot long and maybe an inch and a half in diameter. Some of our cucumbers are four feet long and four inches in diameter. You could play baseball with these cucumbers. Well, actually, you could only bat the ball once. The integrity would not allow a second foul ball.

But baseball season is heading into its final month as our Fall Open House season is almost upon us. Soon as Labor Day is over, we begin our second home selling season in Sacramento. September will be a fast and furious month for home sales. We still have no inventory and yet very low interest rates — although, I am working on a handful of new listings for next week. So, please check my website after Labor Day for new listings.

Until then, here is an article about Open House Etiquette for aspiring home buyers. And look on the bright side, Helen, in case you are reading this blog, at least your visitors thought to use the “washroom” instead of doing their business wherever they were standing. My mother was positive some people were born in a barn because that was one of her favorite questions. Although, why she would ask me never made any sense. I was fairly certain she was present at the time.