Why staying costs you money
- Buyers will not talk in front of you. The conversation where two people decide they can see themselves living somewhere does not happen with the owner in the kitchen. They walk through politely and leave.
- You will say too much. Why you are moving, when you need to be out, what the last offer was — all of it is negotiating information, and sellers hand it over in ordinary friendly conversation without noticing.
- You will hear the feedback wrong. Nobody criticises a home to the owner's face. What you hear standing there is manners, not information.
- You cannot help. Pointing out the new furnace does not move a buyer; it makes them feel watched. Anything worth knowing belongs in the listing or in a sheet on the counter.
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.