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September 28, 2016

Party People in the House, Keep Them Out

Single-family home sellers in San Francisco, beware: Kids are breaking into vacant homes on the market and hosting impromptu parties, trashing properties and seriously disrupting real estate marketing and transactions.

The break-ins have been happening for the past several months. It starts with entrance to a given house (not condos) at around 9:00pm on Friday or Saturday nights. The trespassers then use social media to invite a few hundred underage kids to the “party.”

The damage has reportedly been very serious, resulting in at least one seller having to take his property off the market for a month to do repairs. In other cases, only a major cleaning has been needed. Agents have been reporting incidents all over the city in neighborhoods as varied as St. Francis Wood, Glen Park, the Richmond, Pacific Heights, and Crocker Amazon. More than a dozen real estate brokerages and their clients have been affected.

There have also been reports of the same home being hit multiple times. Partiers appear to gaining access by picking the locks.

If you’re a seller or listing agent currently marketing or in contract on a vacant single-family house, make sure your neighbors keep an eye on the property and alert you (and the police) when they see signs of a bunch of kids coming and going. Another option is to temporarily hire a security company to babysit the listing in advance of an open house.

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