Open Houses: The Right Way

There's a right way and a wrong way to use an Open House if you're a home seller. Open Houses are what most people think of when they're considering and thinking about selling their home. But it is absolutely flawed because here's what an Open House is: Open House is really just you or your agent throwing out a few signs on the corner and then waiting around, typically for about a three-hour period, to see who just happens to drive by. And who is normally coming into the property? It's neighbors, it's looky-loos, and it's that couple having a nice little, a weekend getaway, going out for some ice cream, seeing the signs and then saying, hey, why don't we tuck in there? It would be nice to just "take a look" at a home.

You do get real buyers, but they're typically in research mode. They are about six months out (at least the ones that are going to get there on the accident of running into the signs). Here's the right way to use an Open House. When you're going to use an open house strategically, have your agent orchestrate an entire marketing funnel where buyers are on appointments, all condensed into the same period of time. Those buyers are coming to view the property all within a small window so they're guaranteed to bump into each other, therefore creating competition.

Here's the key. Now you go and throw an Open House at the same time as those scheduled showings. So what's happening is you get the looky-loos that come in, you get the neighbors who come in, you get all of them into the home. They're coming at the same time as your scheduled appointments, the real buyers. The thing is though, the real buyer sees a real buyer coming in. The real buyer perceives competition. Their competitive juices flow and they start focusing on how do I beat these other buyers and get the home instead of focusing on how to beat up the seller.