Homes for sale are surprisingly common targets for thieves. While they may seem empty to some, experienced thieves know that they are easy targets that can still be full of valuables. If you are putting your home on the market, you need to know how to keep it safe from intruders.
Why Empty Homes are a Tempting Target
Empty homes are a tempting target for thieves because most home robberies are crimes of opportunity. Thieves may plan to come rob a home, but they are not concocting elaborate plans to circumvent security systems. Instead, they tend to look for homes that are easy targets - and no target is more tempting than an easy home. After all, there's no chance that a person will be home to call the police, and the odds of being interrupted in the midst of the robbery are slim. From a criminal standpoint, these homes are simply those that make the most sense to rob.
There's also something to be said for the lag between committing a crime and it is discovered when it comes to robbing an empty home. If you aren't showing your home on a regular basis, a house on the market can sit completely empty for days or weeks at a time. If a thief chooses to enter quietly and not to break anything in the front of the house, he or she can be gone from the home for a significant period of time before anyone notices that a crime has been committed.
If you have a house on the market, you need to make sure that it doesn't look like a tempting target. Make sure to keep up the appearance of it being inhabited and always invest in a good security camera to let others know that you're watching. With the right equipment and a few simple actions, your home will stay safe while you attempt to make a sale.
How to Keep Your Home Safe
The first, and most obvious, step that must be taken to keep your home safe is to start making use of the basic security measures that you already own. Make sure that you always lock the doors when you leave and that you don't leave the home entirely unattended for long periods of time. Keep mowing the grass, collecting any mail that arrives, and cycling the lights on and off. If you can make your home look like it's less of a tempting target, the vast majority of would-be thieves will leave it alone.
It's also important to make sure that you have proper surveillance. A good - and visible - a security camera will not only help you to keep track of what's going on at your property, but it will also scare off potential intruders. Your goal should be to make use of a camera that you can easily control and/or watch from a remote location so that you can keep checking in on the property. The more present you seem at the house, the less likely someone will be to mistake it for an easy target.
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