What to Expect During Showings (And How to Read the Market's Response)
/Your home is listed and the showings are starting. This is the part of the process where your preparation pays off. It is also the part where you need to be mentally ready as well as physically prepared.
Staying Ready to Show
Most of your prep work is done. But now you have to maintain it while still living in the home, which takes real discipline.
A few things that make this period much easier:
Establish a quick tidy-up routine. A 15-minute walkthrough before leaving for a showing -- surfaces cleared, beds made, lights on, blinds open -- makes a real difference in how the home shows.
Have a plan for where you will go. A coffee shop, park, library, or errands run works fine. You just need a default answer ready so showings do not feel disruptive.
Make a plan for pets. Dogs especially need to be removed from the home during showings, both for buyer comfort and for your pet's well-being. This one is worth figuring out before the first showing request comes in, not during it.
Leave During Showings
This is one of the most important things you can do as a seller, and it costs you nothing.
When sellers are home, buyers rush through rooms, whisper their observations, and leave without forming a real connection to the property. When buyers have the space to themselves, they slow down. They open closets. They stand in the kitchen and imagine cooking in it. They talk openly about whether this is the one.
Give buyers the space to fall in love with your home.
How to Read the Market's Response
The activity you see in the first two weeks is data. Here is how to interpret it:
Strong early interest with offers. Multiple showings in the first week and offers coming in mean the price is right and the home is showing well. This is the outcome that good preparation and accurate pricing are designed to produce.
Showings but no offers. Buyer traffic without offers means something is preventing people from committing. It might be price, a specific condition issue, a feature of the home, or something that keeps coming up in feedback. I will work with you to identify it and address it.
Few or no showings. Limited activity in the first two weeks almost always points to a pricing issue. Buyers search by price range. If your home is priced above what similar homes are selling for, the buyers who would be most interested may not even be seeing your listing. When this happens, a price adjustment needs to be discussed seriously.
A Note on Feedback
Not every buyer will leave detailed feedback. And sometimes the feedback you do get will sting a little.
Try to hear it as useful data rather than personal criticism. If three different buyers mention the same concern, that concern is worth taking seriously. I will help you sort through the feedback and decide what, if anything, to act on. Some of it is genuinely useful. Some of it reflects a buyer who simply was not the right fit for your home.
The goal is not to make everyone happy. It is to find the right buyer.
Tracking Your Showing Activity
The Utah Home Sellers Guide includes a Showing Activity Tracker you can use to log showings, record feedback themes, and document any decisions made in response. Keeping a simple record of this period helps you see patterns that might not be obvious week to week.
Melissa Brownell is an Associate Broker with Plumb & Company Realtors in Salt Lake City, Utah, with 15 years of experience helping buyers and sellers throughout the Salt Lake Valley.