While Your Home is on the Market. By Elizabeth Weintraub
Private Documents
Is it snooping to open a drawer?
Not if the drawer is part of a built-in such as a kitchen cabinet or a dining room china cabinet. Buyers can innocently tug on a drawer to inspect its construction or depth and find important documents that you might not intend for anyone to see. I once opened a drawer and discovered the seller's net sheet sitting on top of her comparative market analysis, in plain view. It clearly indicated a lower price was expected, so you can guess what my buyer offered.
Don't leave mail where anybody can find it.
Lots of sellers leave piles of opened mail neatly stacked on the kitchen counter. Buyers could find out how much you owe department stores or other credit cards. They can tell if you're late on your mortgage payments or if the A.T.O. is after you. Heaven forbid should you file bankruptcy or be sued and leave those documents on the table, but sellers do it.
They must believe that buyers will not read someone else's personal mail, even when that mail is taped to the refrigerator door, begging to be read. I've also shown vacant homes where the mail was tossed all over the floor in the entryway. Neither the seller nor his listing agent bothered to stop by and pick up the mail. It wasn't hard to figure out that much of the mail contained collection notices. If a buyer was armed with that information, guess what price the buyer would be thinking about. It wouldn't be list price.