Real Estate: Open Houses
When preparing to sell your house, holding an Open House is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. What you need to know is that an Open House doesn’t necessarily directly lead you to your home buyer. In fact, most of the visitors that go to an Open House rarely ever buy the house that they are looking at. An Open House is like advertising in that it’s not always about getting people to buy it – it’s about getting them to notice it, spread the word, and recommend it to others.
The main duty of an Open House is to serve as an announcement – it lets all of your neighbors know that the house is on the market, so that they can come it, take a peek, see if they like it, and spread the word. Most people are inherently nosy, so the majority of your neighbors won’t be able to resist the urge to check it out.
And believe it or not, you want these people to come check out your house, because they are most likely the ones who will tell their friends, neighbors, and acquaintances about the available house – creating tons of word of mouth advertising for you.
It’s important to host an Open House right when your home has been placed on the market. If it’s already been on the market for a while and people have already seen the “for sale” sign, they’ve probably done all the word of mouth advertising they’re ever going to do – which, if they haven’t seen the house, is probably very little.
However, if you do want to host more Open Houses but your agent has helped you host yours already, you can always check if another agent would do it for you. Your listing agent may allow someone else to do it, because it’s less work for your listing agent, and other agents would be interested in doing it just for the opportunity to meet and network with future prospective homebuyers.
The important things to remember are: host it as soon as you can, make it as big as possible, and have a good impression on people – if they like you and they like your home, they’re much more likely to recommend it to others!
