Open houses along have been one of the standard marketing activity for real estate agents and brokers across the country and world. Many sellers value open houses as a main activity for marketing, and eventually selling the property. We’re gonna touch on some of the benefits of open houses, some of the myths, and what an open house can really do for you as a seller.open houses for sellers

How to maximize an open house

When doing an open house, it is very important to preplan for the open house, and distribute as much information to the community, online as you can. The main goal of an open house is to distribute the message. Only a very small percentage of open houses actually sell from the person that walks into the home, but remember this is not the main goal. If they buy it, fantastic, but the main goal of doing an open house is to meet the neighbors, and distribute as much information throughout the community as you can. It really is an indirect marketing activity, you distibute  information in hopes that these people in the community will broadcast to their friends and family that there is a nice home available, and this is where your major chance may come. So as you can imagine, if an agent just shows up and throws up a few signs, and does no pre-marketing, an open houses effectiveness goes down dramatically.


Things agents should do to prepare for the open house

Pre marketing

Your agent should pre-walk the neighborhood and distribute invitations to the neighbors about one week to three days in advance of the open house. Some agents will also call the neighbors to reinforce the invitation. Prepare nice marketing materials, something of value for the neighbors, including a very nice flyer of the home. The agent should also have a sign in sheet, and do their best to obtain contact information for marketing purposes.

Lots of signs

Not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, but at least 8 to 12 open house signs