What do you do with your guns when you're selling your house?

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TomJ

TomJ

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I'm putting my house up for sale in a couple of weeks and will obviously have potential buyers walking through it. I have quite a few guns which are stored in two gun safes. I didn't want to advertise the fact that there are guns in the house to people I don't know, and my first thought was to bring them to my son and daughter in law's house in Wisconsin until I moved and then pick them back up. As I saw in another thread, I'd need to transfer the guns to them through an FFL which would be time consuming and expensive. I own a business and can store them in my office as it's currently not being used due to covid, but the landlord has a key to it so I'm not comfortable leaving them there. The only thing I can think of is covering the safes with a mover's blanket and stacking moving boxes in front of them, giving it the appearance as if things are just packed up for the move. I'm curious as to what others have done when showing their house.
 
If they are in a safe even potential thieves won’t likely mess with them. To much time and risk. So unless you’re not comfortable with potential buyers knowing your a gun person I wouldn’t worry about it. We just moved this last fall and our place in southwest Michigan sold in one day. We moved to and island in Northern Lake Michigan and I didn’t want to move anything twice especially Gun safes! Good luck with your move.
 
Steve Milbocker said:
If they are in a safe even potential thieves won’t likely mess with them. To much time and risk. So unless you’re not comfortable with potential buyers knowing your a gun person I wouldn’t worry about it. We just moved this last fall and our place in southwest Michigan sold in one day. We moved to and island in Northern Lake Michigan and I didn’t want to move anything twice especially Gun safes! Good luck with your move.
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True, but if I was a potential thief I would assume there were guns not kept in the safe. Like a nightstand or vehicle gun. Yeah I think OP only option is some camouflage like OP said. Some moving blankets, etc. That ought to do it.
 
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Same problem during major renovations. I throw a large blanket/spread over the workbench and reloading bench. (That also discourages the workers from borrowing tools and forgetting to put them back.) I've gotten less worried about it over the years. Part of me wants to keep it private and part of me worries a little about theft but part of me wants to scream:

Hey World. Being a shooter is a NORMAL activity.
 
I'm not concerned with people knowing I own guns in regards to their opinion of me. It's the potential theft I'm trying to avoid. I know the odds of this aren't that great, but I'd rather reduce them as much as possible.
 
TomJ said:
I'm putting my house up for sale in a couple of weeks and will obviously have potential buyers walking through it. I have quite a few guns which are stored in two gun safes. I didn't want to advertise the fact that there are guns in the house to people I don't know, and my first thought was to bring them to my son and daughter in law's house in Wisconsin until I moved and then pick them back up. As I saw in another thread, I'd need to transfer the guns to them through an FFL which would be time consuming and expensive. I own a business and can store them in my office as it's currently not being used due to covid, but the landlord has a key to it so I'm not comfortable leaving them there. The only thing I can think of is covering the safes with a mover's blanket and stacking moving boxes in front of them, giving it the appearance as if things are just packed up for the move. I'm curious as to what others have done when showing their house.
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OK, so wife and I ARE selling our house and have had several people walk through it. It is not uncommon practice to put guns or other valuables in a closet, however they are stored, and give instructions to buying agents that the space may not be viewed. No explanation is necessary. Your selling agency can easily accommodate that. If a someone wants to make an offer they can ask the "why's" later.

Also, while I moved some of my stuff into storage I left my guns and ammo with a relative. A close and trusted friend would do also.

I have had the added burden of showing with some expensive antiques displayed in one room. I won't specify here. While the room was open to potential buyers I specified not to have unattended visitors in the room and NO CHILDREN.

Your camo job of making the gun stuff look like packed up boxes is a good one. Unless you live in a high crime area where break ins are common I am sure it will be just great.

It has all worked out fine for us and our home is under contract!!!
 
I'm not so sure that leaving them with your son requires a transfer of ownership. That seems a little drastic.

We were extremely lucky in this regard with our last move. We bought a house and had completely moved before anyone needed to see my gun room.
 
Be sure to post a sign stating that the safe and all of its contents are not included with the house........
 
CraigC said:
I'm not so sure that leaving them with your son requires a transfer of ownership. That seems a little drastic.

We were extremely lucky in this regard with our last move. We bought a house and had completely moved before anyone needed to see my gun room.
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Attached is the link to that thread. I could probably do so without anyone knowing, but I won't risk my son and daughter in law as well as myself being charged criminally, even if that possibility is remote.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-not-my-residence.883440/page-2#post-11822690
 
TomJ said:
I'm not concerned with people knowing I own guns in regards to their opinion of me. It's the potential theft I'm trying to avoid. I know the odds of this aren't that great, but I'd rather reduce them as much as possible.
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Same here. Once my wife got into the safe in front of company even though I was trying to beg her with my eyeballs not to when I saw what she was doing, while not trying to offend anybody. They were not people I'd worry about, but I still changed the combination to the safe. Security 101 stuff. She knows better now, just a momentary airhead thing.
 
My safe has been in several houses over the years; realtors and potential buyers were there, other times contractors; nothing happened any time.
 
You could move the whole safe to either the sons place or a storage unit. A month at a mini storage is cheap. I would toss a couch or chair in with it just to look like furniture storage.
 
I have sold 3 houses in the past 12 years and I had gun safes in the house. I move around a lot.
Anyway, I went through this very quandary and decided to keep all the guns in the big safe and secured the smaller safes in boxes on a closet.
I took all pictures and gear indicating the safe and the room were for guns out of that room and packed them up in boxes and stowed them in the garage.
Anyone touring the house would see there was a safe but would have no real clue what the safe was for.
One of my realtors told me a lady assumed the safe was for camera equipment because she saw a box in the room labeled “photography”. The box was one my wife brought from work so I just sat it on top the safe.
 
I think your idea of covering the safes and stacking some boxes is a reasonable idea for two reasons. You will have peace of mind and out of sight out of mind with respect to lookers. I don't know how big your safes are, but I have one that thieves would need 2 or more people and a hydraulic lift to move it.
 
Your idea about covers and boxes will work just fine__out of sight, out of mind. Given that you are moving, a stack of boxes will attract no attention. Just be sure the stack is not concealing something that potential buyers would want to see.
 
We just went through this. Stacking boxes, etc. will not help sell a house. Many people will look under blankets. It's okay to look like a gun guy.

A gun safe is a benefit when selling a house. Even if people don't have guns, they have stuff they'd like to keep safe. Ask people who give you offers if they want the one that's there? Think of it as a refrigerator. The old one can convey to the new folks, or come with you.

Our safe was bolted to the floor. Our buyer was thrilled to find a house where he could keep his shotgun, safely, away from his young children. His wife liked having a place for rings and papers. I gave him a cash price similar to what a professional safe company would charge to deliver and install a new one. He took it right away. I bought one for the new house and it was installed by the time we moved in. The new safe is bigger and better. Everybody won.
 
P.S. When saying it's okay to look like a "gun guy" to be clear, I don't recommend blabbing loudly in public places, bragging to strangers or putting firearms related stickers on the vehicle.
 
Cover it with a wardrobe box, stack your other moving stuff in the same closet etc. and it simply becomes this is where we are storing our moving crap as we try to sell the house. Did this with second house sale.

If you have the ability put it in a locked closet and just let potential buyers know that is where you are storing all the crap and moving stuff that we wanted stuffed away while showing house and it’s just a closet. We did that with first house sale. No worries.
 
The safes will be a magnet no matter how large of difficult to get into.

Once seen, a safe's presence is never forgotten and the information passes from person to person with the interpretations magnifying with the re-telling.

Hiding them is an iffy proposition as any savvy buyer or broker will ALWAYS wonder about every single corner of a structure that they are precluded from seeing.

These days, pretty much EVERY commercially available *safe* is openable with portable tools. Remember that a potential thief doesn't care a whit about damage to contents relative to catastrophic compromising of the safe's structure.

Anyone can saunter into a rental outfit and get everything they need. Then, privacy/noise is their only concern.

I've seen this scenario played out far too many times for this to be hypothetical or speculative on my part. Brokers, potential "buyers", movers, inspectors, contractors, lookey-loos.... all will potentially traipse through there and then - the Chinese-whispers start.

The only way I'd ever show a home with a safe is if it were Locke OPEN for all to see.

Todd.
 
We had a locked storage room in the house when we were showing. Everything gun related went in there. Nobody expressed any concern. I did allow the home inspector to take a look under my supervision once we were under contract.
 
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