How to meet a stranger to hand over a chair

What people worry about with selling locally usually isn't the money. It's the part where somebody they've never met comes to the house.

You don't have to do that

You choose how you hand over when you list: porch pickup, an in-person meetup at your home, or a public spot. Pick a public spot and no home address comes into it at all, yours or theirs. Pick your porch and the buyer doesn't get your street until you've put the item out and photographed it.

If you do use your porch

• Your address goes to exactly one person: the buyer whose payment we're already holding for that item.
• It appears only after you've confirmed the day. Never on the listing.
• You don't have to be home. Put the thing out, photograph it as you do, and that photograph is your side of the handover.

Worth doing either way

• Daylight, somewhere with other people around.
• Agree the time in the app rather than over messages, so you both get reminded the day before, and again ninety minutes and an hour out.
• Photograph the handover. It takes a second, and if the deal is disputed later it's the only evidence that exists.

Most handovers take under a minute and neither person says much. That's what we're aiming at.