A second home that is also on the market has two audiences: the people who might buy it, and the building itself while it waits. Agents need access. Gardens need not to brown. The interior should not smell closed. None of that is a valuation, a legal completion service or a substitute for the agent’s own job.
Guardemar can hold keys, inspect, coordinate cleaners and let authorised viewers in. It does not sell the house.
Access has to be boringly controlled
Viewings multiply the number of people who might reasonably ask for a key. The rule should still be yours: named agency, named individuals if possible, recorded attendance, property secured afterwards. A lockbox on the gate with an unpublished code is still a key-management decision, not a reason to abandon the inventory.
Key holding and contractor access are the same tools used for plumbers. Apply them to viewings. After a viewing, a quick visual check confirms doors and shutters if you have asked for one.
Do not label keys with the full address because the house is “easier to show that way”.
Condition is now part of first impressions
Musty rooms, a green pool and a dead lawn photograph badly and, more importantly, they are the same vacancy problems you already had. The difference is timing. A leak that would have been an insurance conversation is now also a conversation with a buyer.
Keep the ordinary care running: humidity, pool observation, irrigation, mail. A cleaner before a busy viewing weekend is coordination, not staging as an interior-design service.
A current photo report also helps you brief the agent on what is already known, so a mark on a ceiling is not “discovered” for the first time during a viewing. See what a photo report should contain.
Do not turn inspections into a survey for the buyer
A home-watch visit is still visual and non-invasive. It should not be presented as a snagging list, a structural opinion or a document the buyer can rely on as due diligence. If a buyer wants a survey, they instruct a surveyor. If you want a property handover after sale, that is a different moment, for the new owner.
Between viewings, the house is vacant again
Marketing periods can be long. The unoccupied weeks in between still need a schedule. How often to inspect does not pause because a board is up.
If you are selling an Algarve second home and still living abroad, request a property assessment. Compare plans for the vacant period; viewing access can sit alongside that routine where authorised.