You are not unreasonable to want to be notified that a showing will happen, if that's what you have asked for.

Everything has a price. The more that you restrict showings, the less showings you are going to get. Since it has been six months and the house remains unsold I would be happy about the showings personally.

When house shopping, I typically set out with an agenda and change it as needed. Both the house I live in currently and my previous home were spur of the moment showings. In both cases the houses didn't meet some criteria established prior to driving by the home. Had either of these had a requirement for scheduling we wouldn't have scheduled.

While I understand others may feel differently, I am somewhat impatient and if I want to see your house, then I want to see your house. While I understand that isn't possible for an occupied home, an unoccupied home that I can't see annoys me.

I don't care if it's spur of the moment. I'm set up to get text messages. Agents can't go without the code the the lock box from my agent. I'm just asking for agents to enter the appointment in the Centralization Showing Service, so I get a text.

This is first time an agent has gone without an appointment.

If I'm over at the house working, I'll know to leave for a bit while they show the house if I get a text.

Plus, I need to know if I need to go over later in the day to make sure the house and workshop are locked up, that the lights haven't been left on, that someone hasn't cranked the heat all the way up, or that people's kids haven't put things in my toilet.

Oh, I quite understand. I left my house in one state and I moved to another. I had reports from my former neighbors of parties in my house and lights on at night.

When I drove (or did I fly...don't remember) back, I found that someone had forced one of the windows and the toilets were all plugged with excess waste and paper. And indeed, there had been a party in the house :(

It is certainly hard to leave a house unattended!

My agent got back with me and said that it's a big no-no to go to a home vacant or occupied without an appointment. She also said it doesn't say in the agent's notes that the house is vacant. And honestly an agent isn't going to know from just driving by, they would have to go peak in windows.

On the bright side guys we got a ton of yard work done over there today. And since my oldest is on spring break from college we're going to go over in the week and do some more work.

I was informed in advance of every showing. We moved out before we listed.

I would never go into a vacant home w/o an appointment. It takes one minute to call the appointment center. It is a violation of the local MLS association.

Here, we put showing instructions in mls. Vacant homes often show "vacant on lockbox", allowing agents to show without appt. Our lockbox es (sentrilock), email us the date, time, agent name, brokerage, and contact info as soon as it's opened. So we know it was shown.

Make sure your mls shows "call for appt", not vacant on lb, in showing instructions.

Our MLS has the same rule as ncrealestateguy: it's a violation to show the property without an appointment, even vacant properties. As he indicated, it only takes a moment to set the appointment if the agent is using "Showing Time" or Centralized Showing software. If the agent is not using appointment setting software of some type, it can take longer. In every instance you should expect and receive notification of showings in advance.

Different areas have different types of lock-box access abilities. It's bad form to not let someone know if you are showing a home. I have lived in areas where the selling agent was required to be present for any showing due to thefts and break-ins. That was city wide. It wasn't a function of the neighborhood. Other areas, it's much looser. As an appraiser, we always left our business card on the kitchen counter to let the owner know we had viewed the property.

With the advent of Zillow, many people will look at homes before calling a realtor. If I know from the listing pictures that the house is vacant, I don't have a problem driving into the driveway, getting out and walking around the exterior. It lets me know if I want to pursue an appointment. If the house is occupied, I'm just going to drive past very slowly.

I didn't realize there were appointments that you could set in a few minutes. To my somewhat literal brain an appointment means scheduling in advance. It doesn't seem much of an appointment if it is a few minutes before showing but whatever works.

Exactly^^^. Most times the buyer that adds the house last minute because we are driving by is a very interested buyer. They aren't tire kicking when we are already in the neighborhood looking at something else and a previously 'undiscovered' listing appears that they want to see right away. As stated above, sometimes we can get in with a quick appointment and sometimes the seller requires a mandatory lead time (2 hours, half a day, 24 hours etc).