I'm looking to list my house in the next 2 weeks. I have gun stuff in a few places around the house, including a large safe in my bedroom. I don't like the idea of strangers walking through my house knowing I own guns. More than that, I don't want people knowing I'm a cop. My police stuff is such that I can move it off site and/or hide it well for showings. The gun stuff is another story as far as hiding.

Should I move as much gun stuff as I can somewhere else before listing? It would be a major pain in the butt, but something I could do if needed. Should I keep my guns locked up and don't sweat the rest?

Many real estate brokers are suggesting to their sellers that the property be staged for showing.

This means removing all your nic-nacs, photos, art, debris, clean out pantries, closets, etc. When we sold our house and moved, we rented a storage unit to hold all the “stuff” removed for staging. It was like living in a hotal room! Nothing was left out.

Google home staging for hints and ideas.

I would find another place for the guns and your police stuff. You have no idea who comes to your house to look at it. Some home invaders do that to case houses sometimes etc.

move it all out.

As a buyer, any home that was still lived in was at a huge disadvantage to those staged properly; i.e. empty with maybe some staged furnature.

In fact, the worst homes were almost always the ones that showed obvious personalities that were different than ours. To wit:
- It was hard for my wife and I (early 30s) to envision ourselves in a house that was clearly lived in by an 80 year old woman with 80 year old tastes.
- Another house had a wonderful "Joe's Restaurant - Whites Only" sign above the master bedroom door. Context is everything - had the seller had a "this is my room dedicated to civil rights era things", that'd be one thing. But no such luck; it could have been there because the owner was racist, or it could have been there ironically. Didn't matter. Instant turn off. (There were other issues with the home, like dogs shitting on the deck and back yard, cigarette smoke smell all over, dog urine smell in placdes, and a *RENTER* in the basement who didn't know she was selling, and other issues.)

That said, someone looking to flip a house will have a different set of criteria and will better be able to overlook things that don't affect the homes potential. But they'll use anything to bargain you down. Case in point - our real estate agent saw that second house, understood why we said no, but did comment that it would likely sell way below market value and then fixed up for pretty good flip.

I’d move as much as I could.

When I toured the house I eventually bought, the previous owner had a press set up for shotgun reloading. Was afraid to vacuum the area after I bought it, thinking I’d suck up some powder and set it off

Agree, move everything possible.

You might consider selling the safe with the house (and getting a bigger one at the next house). The realtor can let the prospective buyers know it comes with the house, but of course no one gets the combination until the close.

quote:

Originally posted by cooger:
I'm looking to list my house in the next 2 weeks. I have gun stuff in a few places around the house, including a large safe in my bedroom. I don't like the idea of strangers walking through my house knowing I own guns. More than that, I don't want people knowing I'm a cop. My police stuff is such that I can move it off site and/or hide it well for showings. The gun stuff is another story as far as hiding.

Should I move as much gun stuff as I can somewhere else before listing? It would be a major pain in the butt, but something I could do if needed. Should I keep my guns locked up and don't sweat the rest?

I moved from CT just after the shooting in 2014, in a horrible climate to list a house and sell it with my safes visible. I had 3 fort knox safes. All 40"x70" safes. All in a row taking up the closet. We listed the house and had 3 offers in 3 days of it being up. All three offers wanted the safes to stay. The final offer was negotiated to leaving the washer/dryer, one safe, and a painted tin star. For that they gave us 20k extra.

We left them the doccument safe. IE with flat shelves. We had prepped the the Realtor explain my wife was a CPA and these were her client papers. The only person who asked was the actual buyer. A just retired navy guy, who said it would not be to hard to change it to store his guns.

So in short. All the bidders wanted to keep all 3 safes at 6-7k a pop. It honestly was a selling point, a luxury that very few think to buy for themselves.

I wouldn’t worry about moving the safe. I would lock up *every* firearm and move out the LEO gear.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Many real estate brokers are suggesting to their sellers that the property be staged for showing.

This means removing all your nic-nacs, photos, art, debris, clean out pantries, closets, etc. When we sold our house and moved, we rented a storage unit to hold all the “stuff” removed for staging. It was like living in a hotal room! Nothing was left out.

Google home staging for hints and ideas.

We sold our house in April in an extremely hot market, yet we staged it to the nines for maximum effect. We rented a storage unit and started to fill it up (and we threw a bunch of stuff away), leaving some important pieces of furniture. Our realtor had her stager come in with other pieces of furniture, rugs, wall hangings, knick knacks, etc. All clutter removed. Every little detail, every closet was staged and it helped create a buzz. Idea is to make it look like a showcase home in a magazine.

All personal stuff such as most clothing, CDs, DVDs, my home office, reloading stuff, ammo,etc. were all taken off property. Gun safe was moved to the garage and covered with blankets to hide it. House sold in 5 days.

Nothing to do with the gun stuff as much as needing to stage your house. Ditch as much as you can with the key being making your house an empty palette the new owners can see using.

When we sold out house most of my gun stuff was in a closet under the stairs and most showings I st blew it off as the coat closet under the stairs.

While I was a Realtor, I showed one house where the owner had left his double-barrel shotgun out in the open. Spotted by the prospective buyers, they commented on it and kept looking over the house. No biggie, but things may have gone differently if it was an EBR. I'd recommend sanitizing.

Another thing to be wary of -- some months before that incident, I got a call from a client who noticed a home for sale and wanted to see it immediately since he was from out-of-town, looking to relocate. I called the listing realtor, who said she called the homeowner. The house was actually being toured by another realtor and client at that moment, and I was informed it was OK to show.

Half-way through the tour, the client's wife opened the door of the downstairs bathroom, and the owner's 15 year-old blonde, cute daughter ran out, past us, and upstairs to her bedroom. Oh, by the way, she was naked!!!

Seems the realtor had just left a message on the homeowner's answering machine, the daughter got home from school and got in the shower without checking the machine for messages.

I apologized to the girl, of course, and she assured me she understood it was an accident, but all these years later I still haven't gotten over that embarrassment!

Trust, but verify!

Gonna have to move it when you sell anyway, might as well get a jump on it.

When I painted my living room, it got emptied out. It was so nice empty I wanted to leave it that way.

Nothing would make me happier than clearing my place out into a storage locker. Four guys, a big truck, four hours start-to-finish.

Why so happy to ship all my crap? Change would be exciting.

Should you decide to relocate your guns, realize that many storage facilities don't want them on their property either.

I have rented storange units in MO, WA, TX, and KY and remember "no gun" statements in all of the paperwork. Sure, you could go the don't ask don't tell route, but in the event of theft will you also not cry? I would bet it would be difficult to file an insurance claim.

When we bought our house, the previous owner left two guns that I found, a rifle behind the bedroom door, and a revolver on a closet shelf. I think I was the only one that saw them. There is a large population of obliviots that roam the terra...

We sold our last home in 2014, I was a cop then.

We staged our home.

Removed all the stuff that makes it ours...

I had a safe in a closet and left it in place.

I was wearing my cop stuff when people came to look or I just hung my uniform in the closet (and put my gunbelt in the safe)-the parked police car outside was a dead giveaway if I was off duty.

I did take all my ammo and extraneous gun stuff to the storage locker-I did not call them and ask for their permission. If it's important enough to prevent/bar you from storing certain stuff there....then it will be on the contract.

I refinaced my house a couple years ago. I had cleaned my AK47 earlier in the day prior to the VA inspector touring the house. He didnt say one word about the AK with a magazine in it leaning agaimst the wall next to the entertainment center!

How's the politics where you live? It says Kentucky so I'm going to assume relatively right. If left, yeah, I'd store the gun stuff

Get a POD storage unit for the gun and police stuff.
Buy a fabric garment wardrobe and disguise the safe. That is what I did.

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Black92LX

Ingenious, Black92LX!

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Originally posted by Rob Decker:
How's the politics where you live? It says Kentucky so I'm going to assume relatively right.

This is Kentucky. Everybody has guns here. Except maybe Louisville, where they have lefties and felons.