More Home Sellers Are Using Security Cameras to Spy on Buyers During Showings

When I was retiring from the military and selling our house in North Dakota wife would fill up candy dishes in several of the rooms before showings. When we came back after one showing that didn't even last an hour every single candy dish was empty. This was way before security cameras were a common thing in homes, but given how society is these days I can totally understand why people would do this.

LTC Eugene Chu
..."In a recent poll, 30% of sellers admitted to using a hidden camera to drop in on buyers when their home was on the market. That’s double the share just three years ago.

“It’s becoming increasingly more common,” says Haley Jones, a real estate agent with eXp Realty in Knoxville, Tennessee.

With the wide adoption of home video and audio technology, the jump’s hardly a surprise.

About 9.4 million homes nationwide now have some sort of Wi-Fi-enabled camera on-site. In 2020 alone, Americans bought a whopping 8 million video doorbells. Another 53% of households have a smart speaker, allowing them to easily listen in on conversations throughout the house — often using just their smartphone.

To be clear, most sellers are not installing cameras or listening devices just to keep tabs on buyers. In most cases, they already have them — often for added convenience or security around the house, but agents say they present a legal and ethical minefield once the property is on the market.

“It isn’t really ethical for sellers to be listening in, and in some states, I’m sure not legal either,” says Brian Chinn, an agent with Newberry Real Estate in Tyler, Texas. “I tell my clients they are not allowed to be listening in on those conversations. They are private, and imagine if we were looking at a house: Would you want that?”...

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