If properly done, holding an Open House is an effective way to generate more marketing exposure and attract interested buyers. But it’s not as simple as tidying up and inviting people to walk through your home.
To get the most out of your Open House, follow these tips:
- Make Sure Your House Is Ready: Just because you put your house on the market doesn’t mean it’s ready for inspection by prospective homebuyers. Your house has only one chance to make a great impression, so make you do a thorough cleaning and make any minor home maintenance projects that would make it more aesthetically pleasing. For helping locating skilled professionals in any home improvement area, visit our free “Find a Pro” section.
- Weekends are Best: Open Houses are traditionally held on non-holiday Sunday between 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Let people know that you’re having an Open House by placing directional yard signs at key intersections. ForSaleByOwner.com also lets sellers schedule and advertise their Open House event on their online property ad, and allows buyers to search for properties having upcoming Open Houses.
- Stage Your Home: People arrange their furniture and decorations based on their family’s lifestyle and tastes, but buyers are mostly attracted to homes that appear spacious. So you’ll want to stage your house so it makes a great first impression. Here’s more on how to stage a home.
- Create a Sign-In Sheet: Create a simple sheet that asks people to provide their name, phone number and e-mail address.
- Print Our Property Flyers: Print out plenty of copies of your ForSaleByOwner.com property flyer so that prospective buyers have information on the house and your contact info.
- Offer Refreshments: One of the oldest tricks of the trade is baking cookies right before an Open House. It gives the house a pleasant aroma of baked goods and the treats give people a reason to stay and ask questions about the house, which will provide you with more opportunities to talk about its features.
- Get Freshly Cut Flowers: Is there a better way to complement your home’s beauty with a vase of freshly cut flowers? Buy them from a local florist so that when people inevitably remark how nice they are, you can ease into a conversation about the terrific shops and restaurants located nearby.
- Keep a Professional Mindset: Visitors may make comments about what they do not like about the home. As a “by owner” seller, you have to keep a professional mindset and understand that you are not selling your home but rather a house for others to decorate as they see fit.
- Answer Questions About The House: You can never anticipate the wide range of questions that a prospective buyer might ask about the house and local community, but be prepared to answer questions about property taxes and the age of the roof, heating and cooling units, and major appliances. For questions that you don’t know the answer to, tell that you’ll call them with an answer.
- Find Out If an Interested Party is Pre-Approved: Not every person who comes through your house will be interested. But for those who ask questions indicating that they might be, don’t be afraid to inquire if they are pre-approved for a mortgage. If they are not, recommend that they contact a financial lender or a mortgage broker to take the necessary steps. They can also begin the pre-approval process here.
- Follow-Up: Within a day of your Open House, send a “Thank You” email to everyone who took the time to visit your house. Include a link to your ForSaleByOwner.com listing and ask if they had any questions regarding the house. A few days later, call up each person who visited your Open House and – in a friendly manner – ask if they are considering your house. If they are not, thank them for their time and ask if they have any feedback that might make the house attractive to other buyers. For those that are interested, offer them the opportunity to come back. Without getting your hopes up, be prepared by getting state-specific real estate forms needed to begin the formal sales process.
14 comments:
I used a realtor to sell my first house and tried to sell the second one on my own. The part that I found the hardest was not giving my input about the features of the house and just letting the potential buyers explore on their. While you want to be able to answer any relevant questions, you really want potential buyers to be able to envision themselves in the house.
As a home inspector, my approach is slightly different, but I agree with most of the items above. However, with the current real estate market vast numbers of people are simply looking for a great deal and not necessarily trying to visualize themselves inside the staged property that is being presented to them. They are more concerned about the foundation their ideas can be built upon.
Many of my clients (and they are the ones that have already signed the contract) don’t pay any attention to home staging elements, they are asking about possibilities; moving walls, changing colors, upgrading bathrooms and kitchens. It seems that this particular approach changed over the last couple of years, with the falling property prices people have more choices and instead of looking for a house ready to move in, they look for a shell that is ready to be remodeled.
Of course, some basic staging will never hurt, for as long as it is unobtrusive - don’t overdo it, allow the buyers to incorporate their own, virtual ideas.
Just one last suggestion for the homeowners / sellers, 100% based on several years of my crawling through the attics and crawlspaces - evaluate those two areas before placing your property on the market. Almost every house crawlspace and attic has some issues, some of them are serious, and might easily create a problem with your transaction. This is not because of us – home inspectors, it’s because most people never go there to check for problems. Good luck to all of us homeowners.
After looking a the stats from the past year of sales, I'm really sold on staging homes. Truly, the hardest thing is getting the owner to declutter and depersonalize a home. And a close second would be finding a place to get furniture and accessories to stage with. We're scoured attics, Craig's list, second hand shops, and sometimes have to rent.
But it pays off in that quicker sale!
I believe that a trustworthy middle-man would be a best help for this. I like your post thus it's very informative in a sense that your reader would think of it as a whole. Thanks for sharing.
All the points are worth taking note. However, the price and location are what usually decides a purchase. These are the reasons alone, that if you want a quick sale its best to use a estate agent here in the UK, as we will send people who actually have the funds in place to purchase the property.
All the point you mentioned are precious. It will really help the seller to sell their house at good price. As the current real estate market provide the good deal for the buyers and sellers so by keeping this point in our mind we can make useful deal.
Here are some more extremely effective Open House tips:
Put your Open House signs out earlier in the morning (around 9:00 or 10:00) and print on the signs or buy sign riders that say "Open 1 to 4.
Put one large sign in your front yard right by the sidewalk that clearly shows the hours.
Also, on your computer printer, print out a sign that says: "Sorry, but our Open House doesn't start until 1:00. Please come back at that time OR call us at (555) 555-1234 to make an appointment for a private showing." Tape this sign on your front door.
I have never had anyone complain about this. I have had many, many people come back to the open house in the afternoon and tell me that they saw my signs earlier that morning.
This is a very effective way to more than double the exposure to your Open House and it really works!
Once you consider all these tips, then you can be assured of having a much better open house in the near future. Thanks for sharing.
Master these steps so you can hold a successful open house. You can definitely attract a lot of buyers if it's properly done.
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It is certainly advisable to guarantee that the unit is free from any kind of pests before you conduct an open house for better chances of selling.
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I like your post thus it's very informative in a sense that your reader would think of it as a whole. Thanks for sharing such a great post.........
I would highly recommend providing any pest control, termite reports and mold reports to ensure the house is in a suitable condition.
Staging a house is the best way to show a potential buyer what the house could be like if they moved in.
Thanks for sharing - in the process of
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Make Sure Your House Is Ready: Just because you put your house on the market doesn’t mean it’s ready for inspection by prospective homebuyers. Your house has only one chance to make a great impression, so make you do a thorough cleaning and make any minor home maintenance projects that would make it more aesthetically pleasing. For helping locating skilled professionals in any home improvement area.Home Appraisers
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