I want to talk a little bit about open houses and cover the basics of why they work and why they don’t work. First, we’ll address the popular misconception about an open house. From my interaction with the public, the general thought seems to be that ‘open houses don’t work’ and they ‘are a waste of time’. In fact, this perception actually extends to the real estate community as a majority of agents that I talk to also believe open houses are a waste of time.
This belief is right and wrong, and I’m going to explain why. I’ll tell you what you need to know about open houses. There’s a reason we’re so successful at them!
You can also check out our YouTube video here
Wrong Way to Hold an Open House
First let’s talk about why agents and homeowners feel that open houses don’t work. The fact is, if you don’t hold an open house properly, it won’t work. The wrong way to hold an open house is to show up five minutes before it starts and put up a sign or two at the road and sit there hoping somebody comes through. That’s simply poor planning and doesn’t do the seller justice. The agents that do this see very little success and thus think that open houses are a waste of time.
What is an Effective Open House?
Planning
The entire point of an open house is to create exposure for the home, drive traffic through it, and ideally find interested buyers. So, when we do an open house, we plan well in advance. First, we identify the home about a week before the open date. Next, we start by creating promotional material with our marketing department.
Marketing
We start creating advertisements for the open house to run online and social media. These ads are targeted to the demographics that fit the profile of the ideal buyer for the home. We find this profile through ongoing market research. We start running these ads about five days before the open house.
Next we will shoot a teaser video about three days before the open house. This will be a short clip that announces the open house details and highlights a few features about the home. Once this video is shot, it will also be run online as an ad that is targeted to our buyer demographic. About two days before the open house we get on the phones and call our database and invite them to the open house, ask if they might be interested in buying it or if they know someone that might want to buy it.
Execution
Fast forward and the day of the open house we will arrive about 30 minutes early. We do this so that we can get all the lights turned on, open blinds and give the home a once over to make sure everything looks good. Then we will go out and put up signs, as many as possible so we give people the chance to find us. We open it up and while we are there we’ll shoot another live video at the home.
All of this put together is called aggressive marketing. It’s far more effective than passive marketing, which consists of waiting and hoping somebody comes through. Our goal is not to sit back and wait for buyers, it’s to go out and bring those buyers to us.
Can you see how aggressive marketing can make the difference in selling your home?
If you want to see the difference this kind of marketing makes and talk to an agent that knows how to get results, call us at Wesley & Co. today at 810-623-4603.
