The Open House
Let's explore the important points pertaining to your open house.
Why Have an Open House?
It gives your home additional exposure. An open house is an important marketing tool that allows the general public in your area to visit your home for a tour. Contrary to the opinion of some in the business, we think it is worthwhile to have an open house.
The more exposure your home gets, the more opportunity you have to find a buyer. Someone who you think is just a “looker” might then tell a friend, family member, or a co-worker about your home. The rule is: The more action and the more exposure you get, the better your chances are to sell your home.
Timing Issues
- Hold your open house after you have researched the comparables in your neighborhood, finalized your selling price, gotten your house ready to sell, and completed your marketing materials.
- Be sure you have made all the necessary repairs or improvements that are critical to getting the highest possible price. Have you painted everything that needs to be painted? Cleaned the garage? Cut the lawn and replaced any dead shrubs? Minimized any drawbacks and optimized your home's best features?
- Be sure you have produced several sets of a buyer information packet.
- Select a weekend for your open house. Typically Sunday is the best day. However, many people hold their open house on Saturday and Sunday. If you have to clean your house and spend money to get the word out, having a two-day event allows you to have more visitors for about the same cost and inconvenience. The main reason weekends work best is that both husbands and wives who work are normally available on weekends.
- Typically you should start your open house around 1:00PM and end at 4:00PM. However, many people will actually start around 10:00 AM and end about 4:00PM for the same reason some have a two-day event. The cost and the clean-up are the same, and you have more opportunity to find a potential buyer with longer hours.
- Don't pick a holiday weekend when buyers are unlikely to shop for a home.
Open House Marketing
Creating traffic is the key to a successful open house. We recommend the following to generate the most traffic to your home:
- Advertising: Consider running an ad in the classified section of our local newspaper at least one week in advance of your open house.
- Open House and Directional Signs: Put an open house sign on your front lawn and directional signs on all of the corners of major roadways leading to your home. These signs have arrows pointing the potential buyer to your home.
- You could also create a “Welcome - Come In” sign for your front door to let people know it is OK to simply walk in. Some people will hesitate to simply walk into a home without a sign, and you don't want a dozen people ringing your door bell every ten minutes, especially if you are trying to present your home to a potential buyer who is already touring the house with you.
- Neighbors. We strongly suggest that you invite all of your neighbors to your open house. Why? Several reasons: More visible traffic into your home suggests to a potential buyer that the home is of interest to others and is therefore priced correctly. It also gives you more security around the house if you have more friendly people around, and you may want to show off great neighbors to those buyers who are really interested in the neighborhood. Although it's unlikely that a neighbor will actually buy your home, a neighbor is a perfect person to spread the word to a friend, family member, or co-worker whom they would like to have living closer to them that your home is for sale. Neighbors make wonderful sales assistants for you, and you might even consider giving them a “commission” if they help you sell your home.
Open House Security
Any time you allow the general public into your home for any reason, you need to take basic security measures. It's just common sense.
First, remove from view all small items that can be easily stolen. Put them in a box and bring them to the basement or a closet, but get them out of sight. You should not have to worry about having someone taking your possessions when you need to spending your time presenting your home to potential buyers.
Second, most real estate brokers who hold open house only have one or two agents present. We do not recommend that. We highly recommend that you put a team together of at least three people, with you being the fourth. One or two members of your team could be your neighbors; others could be your children if they are old enough, or other family members.
In the event you do not have friends or family who can assist you, consider hiring a few people from work, but do get help.
Your job at an open house is to meet and greet at the front door, quickly assess each visitor to determine which ones are real potential buyers, and then spend quality time with them on a tour of your home. So, you will need one of your team members at the front door so that you can move away with a prospect if you need to.
If someone comes in and they look and sound like they have no intention of buying, have one of your team members take them through the home. You need to focus on real leads; that's why you are having an open house.
Third, we recommend that you have guests register at the front door and have one of your team nearby to ensure that everyone signs in. This accomplishes two things:
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It will weed out those people with ulterior motives. They will be reluctant to sign in.
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It gives you a very valuable tool for follow-up.
After the open house, walk-around and re-check all the locks on all the windows, patio door, back door, etc. Make sure everything is still locked. The overwhelming majority of people who will be coming to your home will be honest. But don't take any chances. Be smart.