Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone here tried to sell their house when it is full of snakes? My wife and I want to sell or house and get one more suitable for our growing family (kids) not snakes. My sister who is a real estate agent and the one we are going to list our house with tells us that it is going to be tough to get anyone to even look at the house when there are animals in the house let alone 50+ snakes and eggs.

Jeff
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most people are highly terrified of any snake, however i wouldn't see a problem with it if it was all neat, organized and cleaned when the house was being showed.

there are companies that will buy houses and investors that should not care.

good luck on selling the house/purchasing a new one
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Deedle

I'm a real estate broker as well. I would do your best to somehow cover the snake cages, whether you use newspaper, towels or something so that the prospective buyers cannot see the snakes. I had this come up at my office once and that seemed to work. Or, if you didn't want people in the room, you could go through the trouble of moving them out and taking pictures of the room, then put them on the door so that people can at least see the room. Always better to show an empty room anyways because people will imagine thier stuff there instead of yours. Snakes obviously freak some people out, so seeing a picture of the empty room, and not actually seeing the snakes in it, may help. It shouldn't be a problem not disclosing the fact that you own snakes, and I would work with your broker to come up with a creative way to keep people out while still allowing them to get a feel for the room. Again, it's probably worth the trouble to spend a day temporarily moving everything out, as much as a pain that will be, to snap a couple shots. Then say that you have pets in the room and people are not allowed in. Then, tape the picture to the door with the dimensions. I live in Oregon and nowhere does it say that you have to disclose pets that have lived in the home. I would keep it to yourself while still allowing people to get a feel for what they're missing. Good luck, Eric-

I was thinking of selling a house and was told that if someone was afraid of snakes they wouldn't want to see that many snakes in a room. They might be afraid that one or two escaped at an earlier time and may still be "lurking" in the house somewhere.

That's what I heard too. Thank you for your comments.

Jeff
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21.21 Ball Python
1.0 Het Piebald Ball Python
4.4 Jungle Carpet Python
1.1 Ivory Jungle Carpet Pythons
2.2 Centrilian Carpet Python
1.1 Irian Jaya Carpet Python
1.1.6 Jayapura Green Tree Python
1.1 Kofiau Island Green Tree Pythons
1.1 Columbian Boa
2.1 California Kingsnake
3.2 Cats
0.1 German Shepard
0.0.3 Eastern Painted Turtle
1.0 Mouse "He is our friend NOT FOOD"