Three things to know about putting your home on the market when you have a pet.

Some of us have pets. And so we are very, very protective of our pets. And when we go to put our home on the market, we worry about so what is going to happen? How is our pet going to react to all the people coming in and out of my house? What's going to happen when you have an open house? How's my cat? How's my dog? How's everybody going to react to having all these people?

My dog is very friendly. She probably would meet everybody and jump all over them. And some people are not pet friendly. So one of the first things that we want to do is we want to decide what's best for your pet because while your pet is friendly and I love pets. I love dogs, cats and all of them, but not everybody does. So what's going to work best for your pet? Is the best thing going to be to have your pet at home and for you to be able to take them in and out because you stay at home? Or as some of our clients have done over the years, they put their pet into boarding because it's just less stressful for them and the pet while the house goes on the market. And if we have to do restricted times while the pet is there, we work on that too.

Part two is, although some of us are very much into our pets, we don't realize that sometimes they smell. Don't tell Sofi, my dog that she smells. She's really sweet. But sometimes they do smell. So we need to think about that as we are staging our house. What are we doing about pet boxes and odors and cat odors and dog dishes and dog bowls and dog treats or cat paraphernalia that they have of all their posts and toys that they play with? Should all that be removed to make the house more neutered or neutral? And that's something that we'd also discuss as we're walking through.

And the last thing is maybe you don't have a pet. And yet you know that a lot of people in your area walk their dogs or have cats so we want to make sure that we present your house is very pet friendly. So three different options and three different things that when we get together to talk about selling your home, that we would go over. It's very difficult sometimes to make sure you are very comfortable with it and our precious pets are too.