Should You Do an Open House?
Marketing: It’s the only way to sell your home. So you think you’re ready to put your house up for sale? Great! Now starts the cleaning, organizing, packing, and showing of your home.
One of the biggest benefits of having a real estate agent at your disposal is the foot traffic they can generate to boost the likelihood of your sale. Their marketing tactics range from fliers to social media and anything in between, but they may have conflicting ideas on one of the most traditional real estate marketing tactics around – the open house.
(Wait…but who pays the real estate agent?)
Should YOU do an open house? Let’s examine the pros and cons.
Open House Pros
Feedback
One of the greatest ways to discover what is valuable about your home (and what isn’t) is to listen in and get feedback from people who tour your home. Try to feel out these people and ask what they think. If there is a feature of your home they are fond of, you can choose to decorate in a way that brings attention to it. If there is something that repels them, you can decide if it’s worth fixing or not.
Clean House
Keeping a home tidy during the selling process is no easy task. Many people just throw their junk under beds and into closets until prospective buyers are out the door. The added pressure of an upcoming open house may push you to really tidy up, and a well kept home is always a comfort to potential buyers.
Lessened Pressure
Open houses can make people feel more comfortable. The free flow of people moving in and out of rooms and speaking amongst themselves relieves some of the pressure for home-seekers. It’s much less formal than an individual home tour from a buyer’s agent, and it allows the buyer more time to explore if they can visualize themselves living there.
Open House Cons
Strangers
The biggest concern for most sellers is the idea of having strangers strolling through their home. It’s impossible to trust someone you don’t know. What if someone sees something they like, and decides to leave with it? Theft could be a cause for concern.
Commitment
Unfortunately, there are many people simply addicted to taking home tours. They are fun. That being said, this begs the question: Are the people coming to your open house actually interested in purchasing, or are they just excited to look around?
Time
No two realtors will have the same opinion on open houses. Some say a sale is impossible without it, and others can’t get the right people in the door. The final thing you need to consider before holding an open house is your time. If you have little time to spare because of work or kids, and you don’t have much faith in the open house process, you might want to try other marketing methods.
So, should you do an open house? Contact an ARC Realty agent to help you decide!
