ShowingTime & General Showing Optimized Instructions & Best Practices for Sellers
- Adam Garrett
- Aug 16, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Nov 10
Image courtesy Showingtime
ShowingTime Basics
What is ShowingTime?
"ShowingTime is the leading showing software and market stats service provider for the residential real estate industry."
"Sellers working with one of the more than 950,000 real estate agents utilizing ShowingTime products and services can expect more showings, a higher feedback response rate and a better home-selling experience."
Agents can make appointments with Showingtime by the app, website, or by calling ShowingTime.
What Can Sellers Do In ShowingTime
"Confirm/decline showing requests"
Provide feedback to agents regarding showing requests
"See all upcoming appointments
Review your home’s showing and feedback activity
Adjust your notification preferences"
Here is more information on your options, per Showingtime.
More Showings Means a Higher Net for the Seller
A higher volume of showings increases the probability that the seller will get a higher net price for their home by increasing the probability of more offers and better offers with more favorable terms. If a buyer's agent can't show when they initially request for, they may never request a showing at your home in some cases.
Seller Survey-Related Questions
Adam will be asking a number of questions in his seller survey regarding your ShowingTime preferences. By filling that out, you'll be ahead of the game vs most sellers.
ShowingTime Best Practices
Text & Email Updates
It's ideal to have automated text updates with ShowingTime & the owner (as well as other occupants in some cases, i.e. tenant occupied properties) so that when a showing request is received & confirmed, all occupants in authority can be on alert & respond accordingly.
What to do if You Must Decline a Showing
If you must decline a showing, be sure to give feedback & communicate with the agent prior to declining. You may be able to tell through that whether or not the agent will be able to come back. If you decline without that communication, you are much more likely to decline in such a way that they never come back & never request another showing.
General Showing Best Practices
Keep the Home in Show Ready Condition
Be sure to keep the home in great shape (especially cleaning) throughout the listing process.
It's ideal to have the home in great shape before a showing, but because some showing requests could be with under 5 minutes notice, it's also best while your home is listed for you to have it in semi-show ready condition as much as possible. Sometimes it's that <5 minute notice showing or no showing at all from that buyer.
If you have rugs or a carpet
While some stains are better removed with differing products depending on the stain type, one good one I recommend for many stains is Carbona Oxy Powered Carpet Cleaner. Its weakest link is the brush attached, but a 3rd party brush is an easy fix, & the cleaning product itself is excellent. Also, don't forget to try to soak up the residue after a deep clean to eliminate both the cleaning and the original bad odor present as well as colors that could remain otherwise.
Also, if you originally intended on doing some things for the house before listing, consider doing them after listing. Sometimes sellers "give up" on their efforts toward sprucing their house up after it goes live, but that's not a best practice.
Have at Least Some Functional Staging, Drinks, & Snacks
With my 3% listing side commission listings (properties $150k & above), here are some examples that I have available to provide as of 11/10/25. If your agent isn't doing these, I suggest it.
Functional staging:
Interior & exterior floor mats at all points of entry from the exterior
Footies to put over shoes
Hand towels
Toilet paper
Hand soap
Hand towels
Trash cans
Plunger & toilet brush
Glass front wine cooler to store drinks for 1st 2 weeks of showing (if available based on other listings)
Drinks and snacks:
All drinks should be clear (if there is a significant % of carpets or rugs in the home), cold, ideally visible without needing to open anything (& if not, a large label should point out that they are available elsewhere). For clear drinks, there's still plenty of variety possible, where you should have at least 5 options, i.e.
Water
Coconut water
Sprite
Flavored no-sugar-added water or carbonated water varieties
Former listing of Adam's w/ His Glass Front Wine Cooler for Listings All food should also be mindful of any carpets or rugs in the home. If there's a significant %, avoid things that could create a stain like chocolate. Even if there are no rugs or carpets, you might want to avoid items that will create crumbs, though that's of lesser importance, especially if the property is occupied, where it'll be easy to clean after. Some food should be cold. I like to provide cheese sticks for kids and Baby Bell small individually wax-wrapped cheese.
For open houses at higher-end listings without too much carpet, individually packaged flan from Costco in small glass containers is another thing I've provided that's great for open houses & looks nice in the wine cooler. Open houses at higher-end properties are something where it's best to provide some more fresh food as well, i.e. from a former listing of mine:
Showing Best Practices if Occupied
Confirm as Many Showings as You Can
The more showing requests that you confirm, the higher your property could go for and the better terms that you might achieve. In a cost/benefit analysis review, many sellers would really wish that they had made their property more available (by whatever means necessary, even if it meant a hotel for a week) for showings if they knew exactly what the difference would be in the offer that they received after declining many showings vs if they had confirmed them all within 5 minutes of each inquiry. If a buyer's agent can't show when they initially request for, they may never request a showing at your home in some cases.
Quickly Respond to Showing Requests
The faster that you can respond to showing requests, the better, & the higher and better the offer you might receive could be. Some buyer's agents may not see your home with their buyers at all if you don't respond within 5 minutes, such as some cases of out-of-town buyers coming into the area for a day with back-to-back showings who have a small gap in time between showings and notice your home nearby during that gap.
Staying at Home During Showings
There are some cases where it's unavoidable to do anything but stay home during a showing if the showing is to occur. If that means that 1 room must remain closed during the showing (i.e. your kid is taking a nap, with you having a white noise maker to help drown out any sound from the showing & the door locked to prevent entry with a sign on the door), that's better than the showing not happening at all. If you have a business appointment via Zoom that can't occur elsewhere (i.e. the conference room of a local library or even in your car), you might want to do something similar, except a white noise maker in the hallway outside of your door, the door locked, and a sign on your door.
Personally, I like to be well-equipped for Zoom meetings in many locations. While I have a home office and main office setup that's larger, my mobile office setup is better than most in my opinion:
Above - image by Adam of his setup at Gather Norfolk, a co-working space
Consider Staying Somewhere Else Completely Initially
From the time that a property is listed until the time that a property has an offer deadline within 1 week later, it's ideal for the sellers & occupants to not be in the home at all between 8 AM & 9 PM if they are unable to respond & depart their home within 5 minute's notice. If it's too much of an imposition to be gone during those time frames, & too stressful to leave with such little notice, you might consider staying with friends, family, camping, or otherwise.
I've made an article on the subject here, going into where you can stay during the day as well as options for overnight, including free overnight options that I can at times help with via free advice in light of my travel hacking expertise:
Be Wary of No Shows, Cancelations, & Rescheduling
There are times when a buyer/buyer's agent is a complete no-show, when they cancel at the last minute, or when they reschedule to a different time at the last minute. For instance, I've had a buyer's agent schedule a showing 6 days in advance, only to reschedule for an hour earlier 35 minutes before the showing they were requesting that it be rescheduled to. With that in mind, it is best to have the house ready in advance of a showing and the flexibility to leave the home or show the home while you're there if you're unable to leave. At the same time, be mindful of what they may do at the last minute.
Have a Wide Showing Window Daily if Possible
I've seen where a narrow showing window cost a seller likely more than 1% of the purchase price. In that case, I represented buyers, who were only available to see it via video because of the narrow showing window options of the occupants with another offer in place already and no time to lose. the listing agent said that we offered over 1% above the other offer, however, the sellers didn't want to take on the additional liability inherent in a video showing vs an in-person showing. They accepted the other offer primarily because of that <8 hr/day showing window.
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