Social Media
Helpful Hints for Open Houses
June 1st, 2011 | by: SM SOLD | Posted in : Real Estate Tips
Timing
First and foremost, choose a date to conduct your open house that does not conflict with events being held in the neighborhood, holidays, or major sporting events. Scheduling the very best date for a potential open house varies for each community. The best day of the week can easily be found out by investigating local newspapers or advertisements that have open house sections. Requesting these resources’ opinions is a great way to get knowledge from those that consistently familiarize themselves with the community’s events. Finding the best days to conduct open houses can be critical to a successful open house and can make all the difference.
Advertising
Make the property known by advertising in variety of ways to reach your target audience. The most common ways to advertise open homes include newspaper ads, local flyers, signage, television, and utilizing the internet and different social media platforms. Familiarize yourself with the local community to strategically place your flyers and signs. You want to target high traffic and popular areas to promote your open house. Place signage at street corners that are easily visible and use flags, balloons, and directional signs that are appealing and eye-catching. If you want to regulate your amount of visitors, send out personal invitations targeting those who you think may be interested. The personal invitations should include close friends, relatives, and neighbors as these are people who you can trust bring you interested buyers.
Provide Property Information
Provide a property information sheet near the entry way of the home. The sheet should detail the property, highlighting the attractive features of the not only the home and the surrounding neighborhood. Provide a summary sheet that gives your buyers a diverse set of reasons to buy this home instead of all the other homes for sale. Investigate demographics and statistics such as crime rates, information and location on nearby schooling and recreation parks, historical facts about the community, popular shopping areas, local libraries, and nearby public transportation. To make your property sheet visually appealing, provide maps and color photos.
Securing Valuables
You can never be too safe when securing valuables in the home. Keep in mind strangers will be entering the house. Be sure to safely stow away, lock up, and remove all jewelry, valuables, items of sentimental value, personal electronics, and firearms. Take special care to secure prescriptions as these are most frequently stolen at open houses.
Staging
Ultimately, the goal is to have your home look, feel, and smell welcoming. Organizing, de-cluttering, and having the house clean are a must. The tidiness of the home will make the areas seem more spacious. Make sure the doorbell and all the interior and exterior lighting fixtures work, and remember to have a welcoming, well-lit atmosphere by opening the drapes or blinds to let in natural light. Refreshment availability is a common practice, but is entirely up to you. It is common to offer finger-foods, especially baked goods such as freshly baked cookies or bread that will add a pleasing scent to your home.
If you choose against offering refreshments, there are other alternative ways to give the house an appealing scent while also adding to the presentation. Lighting candles throughout the home creates a calm and relaxing environment while providing a light scent. Another inexpensive way to boost your home’s interior experience is to have a nicely arranged bouquet of fresh flowers. The flowers will not only give your home some lively color, but also a fresh floral scent.
Building Relationships
Conducting an open house is all about building relationships and establishing a foundation with interested buyers and sellers. Engaging your visitors is critical factor when conducting your open house so it is important to communicate effectively, be knowledgeable about the property, and talk to your guests to find out what they think about the property and what interests them.
Using a guest book sign in is a great way to build new relationships as the open house visitors provide their contact information for future reference. By having the guest book list the visitor’s email, you can build your email database with prospective contacts. Another benefit of the expansion of email contacts is that it is a paperless way to communicate with potential clients. E-Campaigns are a great way to inform your contacts of newly listed, just sold, and reduced properties. They also allow you to send invitations, newsletters, or notes while maintaining the branding of your business.
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