Selling a Home with Pets: Managing Challenges and Creating a Pet-Friendly Environment

As a mortgage professional, one of the biggest challenges that you may encounter is selling a home with pets. While pets provide comfort and companionship for many homeowners, they can also make your job more difficult if you don't know how to handle them properly. Fortunately, with some planning and effort, it's possible to market a home that accommodates pets while minimizing their impact on prospective buyers. In this article, we'll explore how you can manage the challenges of selling a home with pets, and create a pet-friendly environment that appeals to both pet lovers and those without pets.

Managing Challenges of Selling a Home with Pets

The first step in selling a home with pets is to learn how to manage the challenges that come with it. Showing a home with pets can be risky, as some people may have allergies or phobias that prevent them from feeling comfortable in the presence of animals. Additionally, pets can create messes, leave behind unpleasant odors, and even distract buyers from the features of the home. To overcome these obstacles, you need to have a plan in place to secure pets during open houses, as well as measures to accommodate homebuyers' preferences for pet-friendly homes. Here are some tips:

Securing Pets During Open Houses: To limit the impact of pets on potential buyers, you should make arrangements to either board them or have someone take them out of the house during showings and open houses. It's advisable to remove all pet-related items such as toys, litter boxes, and feeding bowls. Additionally, you should ensure that the home is free of any traces of pet hair or odor, which can be a turn-off for some people.

Homebuyers' Preference for Pet-Friendly Homes: While some people are apprehensive about pets, others may be specifically searching for a home that is pet-friendly. This includes features such as a fenced backyard, ample space for pets to roam, and easy-to-clean floors. You can highlight these features in your marketing materials to attract pet-loving buyers.

Possible Solutions for Showing a Home with Pets Inside: If it's not feasible to remove pets from the home during showings, you can consider confining them to a specific area or crate that's out-of-sight of buyers. You can also use air-purifiers and aroma diffusers to eliminate pet-related odors. Ideally, you should seek advice from pet owners on how to manage the pets in their homes while minimizing their impact.

Creating a Pet-Friendly Environment

To cater to pet-loving buyers, it's important to create a pet-friendly environment that seamlessly integrates pets into the home. This goes beyond just securing pets during showings, but also involves decluttering and cleaning, adding a personal touch, and de-stressing pets during showings.

Decluttering and Cleaning: A pet-friendly home doesn't have to be cluttered or dirty. You should take time to remove any signs of pets such as fur, litter boxes, and toys. Deep cleaning and vacuuming carpets and upholstery can also remove smells that accumulate over time. In addition, ensure the house has ample storage space to keep pets' items out of sight.

Adding a Personal Touch: One way to make a home more accommodating for pets is by adding pet-friendly elements such as built-in feeding stations, catwalks, or kennels. This is especially important for people who have unique pets that require special attention or those who are more than pets but family members. You can also use photographs of pets in marketing materials to emphasize the home's pet-friendliness.

Tips for De-Stressing Pets During Showings: Pets can become anxious or nervous during showings, and may misbehave or become aggressive. To minimize such occurrences, you should make the pets comfortable by turning off loud music or eliminating other distractions, allowing pets to roam in a designated area, or placing them in a confined space such as a crate or carrier. It's also important to ask owners if their pets have any specific needs during a showing such as medication administration.

Conclusion

While selling a home with pets can be a challenge, creating a pet-friendly environment can provide many benefits to both pets and humans alike. By following the tips above, you can appeal to both pet lovers and those without pets, and turn a potentially difficult situation into a positive outcome. Always remember that a little bit of preparation and attention to detail can make all the difference in achieving the desired outcome.