ShowingTime Optimized Instructions for Sellers
Image courtesy Showingtime
ShowingTime Basics
What is ShowingTime?
"ShowingTime is the leading showing software and market stats service provider for the residential real estate industry."
"Sellers working with one of the more than 950,000 real estate agents utilizing ShowingTime products and services can expect more showings, a higher feedback response rate and a better home-selling experience."
Agents can make appointments with Showingtime by the app, website, or by calling ShowingTime.
What Can Sellers Do In ShowingTime
"Confirm/decline showing requests"
Provide feedback to agents regarding showing requests
"See all upcoming appointments
Review your home’s showing and feedback activity
Adjust your notification preferences"
Here is more information on your options, per Showingtime.
More Showings Means a Higher Net for the Seller
A higher volume of showings increases the probability that the seller will get a higher net price for their home by increasing the probability of more offers and better offers with more favorable terms. If a buyer's agent can't show when they initially request for, they may never request a showing at your home in some cases.
Seller Survey Related Questions
Adam will be asking a number of questions in his seller survey regarding your ShowingTime preferences. By filling that out, you'll be ahead of the game vs most sellers.
ShowingTime Best Practices
Text & Email Updates
It's ideal to have automated text updates with ShowingTime & the owner (as well as other occupants in some cases, i.e. tenant occupied properties) so that when a showing request is received & confirmed, all occupants in authority can be on alert & respond accordingly.
Quickly Respond to Showing Requests
The faster that you can respond to showing requests, the better, & the higher and better the offer you might receive could be. Some buyer's agents may not see your home with their buyers at all if you don't respond within 5 minutes, such as some cases of out of town buyers coming into the area for a day with back to back showings who have a small gap in time between showings and notice your home nearby during that gap.
Confirm as Many Showings as You Can
The more showings requests that you confirm, the higher your property could go for and the better terms that you might achieve. In a cost/benefit analysis review, many sellers would really wish that they had made their property more available (by whatever means necessary, even if it meant a hotel for a week) for showings if they knew exactly what the difference would be in the offer that they received after declining many showings vs if they had confirmed them all within 5 minutes of each inquiry.
Consider Staying Somewhere Else Completely Initially
From the time that a property is listed until the time that a property has an offer deadline within 1 week later, it's ideal for the sellers & occupants to not be in the home at all between 8 AM & 9 PM if they are unable to respond & depart their home within 5 minute's notice. If it's too much of an imposition to be gone during those time frames, & too stressful to leave with such little notice, you might consider staying with friends, family, camping, or otherwise.
I've made an article on the subject here, going into where you can stay during the day as well as options for overnight, including free overnight options that I can at times help with via free advice in light of my travel hacking expertise:
Staying at Home During Showings
There are some cases where it's unavoidable to do anything but stay home during a showing if the showing is to occur. If that means that 1 room must remain closed during the showing (i.e. your kid is taking a nap, with you having a white noise maker to help drown out any sound from the showing & the door locked to prevent entry with a sign on the door), that's better than the showing not happening at all. If you have a business appointment via Zoom that can't occur elsewhere (i.e. the conference room of a local library or even in your car), you might want to do something similar, except a white noise maker in the hallway outside of your door, the door locked, and a sign on your door.
Personally, I like to be well-equipped for Zoom meetings in many locations. While I have a home office and main office setup that's larger, my mobile office setup is better than most in my opinion:
Above - image by Adam of his setup at Gather Norfolk, a co-working space
What to do if You Must Decline a Showing
If you must decline a showing, be sure to give feedback & communicate with the agent prior to declining. You may be able to tell through that whether or not the agent will be able to come back. If you decline without that communication, you are much more likely to decline in such a way that they never come back.
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