OPEN HOUSES | WILL THEY HELP SELL YOUR HOUSE?

Do open houses work? This is probably one of the most common questions we get from our clients. And the short answer is, it just depends. In this video we cover how having an open house can help give your house a boost in the market and what not to expect from it. Let’s dive in!

BOOSTING TRAFFIC

Open houses do provide additional traffic, but don’t expect an offer from it.

If the listing becomes stale and you haven’t had any showings, an open house can help bring in potential prospects. At the very least, you can receive feedback from those who come and view the property.

Whenever an agent schedules an open house, the consumers who are looking in the area will also receive the notification, as well as their agent, giving additional exposure.

WHERE DO BUYERS COME FROM?

We made an entire video and article relating to this topic. But I want to share with you a study that was recently performed by the National Association of Realtors on how this relates to open houses. According to NAR, less than 7% of all home buyers in the US found their home through an open house. That’s a staggering low amount.

With that kind of data being revealed, what would you expect from an open house? Did you find your house through an open house event? Chances are you didn’t.

3 TYPES OF OPEN HOUSES

There are 3 different types of open houses that your agent can host. A regular open house, a mega open house, and a broker open house. I’ll break it down real quick.

A regular open house it just that. A traditional open house that you’ve probably seen before. Nothing fancy, just a quick open with signs out and some advertising online.

A mega open house takes it further than this. We loved hosting mega open houses prior to covid, and it’s somewhat changed today, but we hope to be able to do these again for our clients very soon.

A mega open house consists of a variety of things. We team up with title companies, lenders, and other professions in the real estate industry to put on this event. We typically have a food truck outside serving people in the community for free, dozens of gifts for raffles, drinks, and scorecards for people to leave feedback on the home. We actually make this into a huge event. A ton of marketing and planning goes into these mega open houses and we usually get a great turn out. We receive extremely valuable feedback on our listings for our clients.

A broker open house is more of a private open house. It’s only for real estate brokers and their agents to view and let their clients know about the house. It helps to receive feedback from other agents and their brokers to figure out their perception of the condition and appeal of the house, price, location and how it could affect their clients decision making. We typically only hold broker open houses for our luxury listings because those clients usually don’t want a crowd of people walking through their home alone. Another instance where we would hold a broker open house, is if a listing has been on the market for a while, we haven’t had many showings, and have already hosted a regular open house. This way we can get other agents feedback on the house and what they would potentially do to get offers from buyers.

CONCLUSION: SHOULD YOUR AGENT HOST ONE?

Open houses are good to do at the very beginning of the listing or if the listing becomes stale. Otherwise, they’re not really effective like they used to be. We live in a digital era where consumers now have all of the information they need at their fingertips.

However, I wouldn’t totally count out open houses because sometimes they can bring an offer. And they do help to receive feedback that you couldn’t get in the first place because you weren’t receiving any showings. And when you as a seller do receive feedback, it’s important to note any trends and correct the problems people are commenting on.

If you are ready to get started with listing your house for sale, give us a call or schedule an appointment so that we can meet and go over your unique marketing plan.

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