Calgary Answers · Selling · Showings

Should I Be Homeduring a showing?

No. Leave. This is one of the few questions in real estate where the honest answer has almost no qualifiers.

Why staying costs you money

Everything you want the buyer to know can be written down. Nothing you accidentally tell them can be taken back.

The narrow exceptions

Acreages and unusual properties are the real ones — a septic system, a well, a shop, an outbuilding history. Even then the answer is usually to brief your REALTOR® in writing beforehand rather than stand in the room. If you must be present, greet, hand over anything written, and go outside. The same rule applies to tenants.

Cameras and recording devices

Plenty of Calgary homes have interior cameras, doorbells and smart speakers. Two things follow. Disclose that recording devices are present — buyers and their agents are entitled to know, and this is territory where regulators expect disclosure rather than discretion. And consider disabling audio for the listing: recording a conversation you are not part of is a different matter from recording a hallway, and it is worth a lawyer’s five minutes rather than your best guess. Listening in on buyers negotiating in your kitchen is not a clever tactic — it is how deals get taken apart afterwards.