What about an Open House?
Quite often we will get requests from individuals that have not sold a home in many years asking if we will do Open Houses?
For many years prior to the Internet the use of “Open House” was a key marketing strategy to getting your home sold. The evolution of the Internet and Virtual Online Tours have changed the way we now sell homes and view Open Houses.
Posting your home online with great photos, so it’s easy to find is today’s equivalent of an Open House.
However, there are some cases where the use of the Open House marketing strategy makes sense. In particular if your home is in a highly visible location with lots of drive by traffic. Also the foot traffic you get from an Open House is often not as good as compared to prospects you get online. A prospect often times visiting a Open House is a spontaneous first time visitor that may be driving by or in the area.
On the other hand, visitors that have already seen your home online are in reality a second time visitor. They have determined they have interest in seeing the home and did not eliminate it on their first visit online. In addition that had to schedule the visit and set aside time to view it, which makes these visitors much more qualified than a Open House visitor.
The other reason many real estate agents have gotten away from doing Open Houses is for personal security reasons. In today’s society we have had many instances of personal assaults, rapes and murders of individuals advertising themselves as being alone in an Open House.
For this reason if your real estate agent does schedule an Open House quite often they will do so with two Real Estate agents and will notify neighbors for personal safety reasons.
