Winning Agent

Sales That Work

  • About
  • Store
  • Blog
  • The Stream
  • Forum
  • Jobs

Want a Successful Open House? Six Tips For Attracting a Crowd

December 26, 2012 by Winning Agent Staff 4 Comments

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on LinkedIn

Want a Successful Open House? Six Tips For Attracting a Crowd

Opinions differ widely on whether or not an open house will actually sell your listing. We’re not here to debate that issue. However, if you’re a Realtor, you’re going to be holding open houses from time to time, so how do you make them pay off? Nothing could be worse than sitting all alone in an empty house on a rainy Sunday afternoon. So let’s see how we can change our perspective. Let’s do some ground work ahead of time to turn that must-do open house into a real happening.

  1. Timing is everything. Before you schedule an open house, check your local community calendars. Don’t plan anything that conflicts with a major local event that’s likely to draw attention away from you. If the circus is coming to town or the local high school is holding track meet finals, pick another day.
  2. All the world’s a stage. We’ve discussed home staging techniques in detail in another article. Work with your homeowner to present the property in the best possible light, both inside and out. The concept here is to present the home so that a potential buyer can imagine themselves moving right in. This means depersonalizing it as much as possible, so that the prospective buyer sees virtually a blank slate.
  3. Get social. More than 80% of the people who are looking for a house start their search online. Take full advantage of marketing through social media, because it’s free. Write sparkling copy and develop a portfolio of good pictures. Then post  your ad in every online listing site you know about. Start with Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, Oodle, and Craigslist and go from there.
  4. Mind the home front. And even though national web sites are a good start, your own web site and social media postings are way better. Of course you’ll be featuring your open house on your company web site during the two weeks prior to the date. And be sure to blog about it as well. Do a daily Facebook posting, highlighting a different feature of the property each day. Support that with frequent Twitter comments, photos on your Pinterest board, maybe an album on Picasa.Are you still doing newspaper ads? You might want to reevaluate that, given that newspaper advertising is more costly and less effective than social media. Remember the 80% rule (above).
  5. Plan your giveaways. Don’t settle for the usual single-sheet flyer with a picture of the home and the listing price. Go several steps farther than that. Put together a detailed color feature sheet, with good quality photographs, interior and exterior. Add an area map that highlights the location of schools, parks, and other neighborhood amenities. Back that up with an aerial view, which you can download from Google Earth. Include a floor plan, and if the house has unusual features, recent remodels or upgrades, do a separate sheet on those with detailed facts and photos.
  6. A picture is worth. . . well,  you already know how that sentence ends. So we’ll end this article with one killer idea that will blow your clients and prospects away. Put all the information outlined under #5 onto a DVD and give that away instead.

Here’s why: you’re not just holding an open house hoping to attract the one buyer who will make an offer. No, you’re playing a much bigger game. You are polishing your brand, for one thing—distinguishing yourself from the competition. You are looking for prospects, future buyers who may want one of your other listings; and future sellers who will be dazzled with your marketing savvy.

So here’s what goes into your Oscar-worthy DVD:

  • A video tour, with narration, of the home’s interior and exterior features
  • Video clips of area amenities, like kids playing in the park or waterskiing on the lake
  • Aerial views, both daytime and nighttime shots
  • Background music
  • Captions and other appropriate text
  • Teaser clips of other properties you have listed

You can probably put together a respectable DVD on your own, or hire a local high school techno-teen to do it for you. There are companies who specialize in this kind of promotion for Realtors (Animoto is one) and if your property warrants that investment, it’s a great way to go. And of course once the DVD is done, you can upload it onto your web site and link to it from all those listing sites we talked about earlier.

In a future article, we’ll talk about how to convert all those open house looky-loos into real prospects. In the meantime, happy selling!

More Great Reading

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on LinkedIn

Filed Under: Real Estate Tagged With: Home Staging, Open Houses, Successful Sale

Comments

  1. Timothy W. Priddy says

    January 23, 2013 at 8:39 am

    Great article with new information and a wonderful refresher, over the years you forget to do some things that made you successful in the first place.

    Reply
    • Richard M. Hartian says

      January 23, 2013 at 8:41 am

      Thanks for the positive comment Timothy!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. How to Lower Your Fear Factor: What’s Holding You Back? - Winning Agent says:
    February 18, 2013 at 7:31 pm

    […] Divide that up into small pieces. How many new clients per month do you need to get? How many open houses, showings, email blasts and blog posts do you need in order to get those clients? What do you need […]

    Reply
  2. Make Your Next Open House Successful and turn it into a Client Bonanza - WinningAgent says:
    March 28, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    […] already given you some tips about setting the stage for a successful open house. But that’s not the whole story. An open house where nothing happens […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Looking For Something?

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive free updates from the Winning Agent blog.

Connect With Me

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

StudioPress Real Estate WordPress Theme: Agent Focused Pro Theme

StudioPress Premium WordPress Themes: Winning Agent Pro Theme




Loan Types & Property Definitions

There are a lot of different types of mortgages, and there are a lot of different types of real estate property. Here is a list of the most common types of each. We’ve added some links to the most popular articles on the subject.

Read More

Real Estate and Mortgage Forum

We think getting many viewpoints to a particular question is important because it helps you to make better decisions. It’s so important that we have woven the Forum all throughout Winning Agent. We invite you to ask questions, make comments, and be part of the discussion.

Read More

Glossary of Real Estate Terms

Real estate and mortgage finance often times comes with its own unique language. If you work with it every day, it becomes 2nd nature, but most people don’t work with it every day. So we’ve created a glossary of mortgage and real estate terms.

Read More

Copyright © 2023 Winning Agent · Powered by the Genesis Framework · Contact Us
Become an Affiliate
This site uses affiliate links, but know that we only recommend products we personally use and enjoy!

 

Loading Comments...