Do You BBQ?  A simple question on a 95 degree day in Fresno, California.  The more appropriate question is what will you do to sell a home and generate foot traffic?  Every weekend the newspaper is filled with pages of sections advertising local open house dates and times.   It takes a while just to find your own ad you placed to advertise your listing.  The problem becomes with all of these open houses to choose from in each area of town how do you get people to come?

Realtors are breaking out all the stops.  It's becoming more like a circus than a home showing. Free hot-dogs and hamburgers, bounce houses, free dinner certificates, raffles, and door prizes.  Do these things really work?   I am skeptical.  I am fully aware the more people that view the listings the better our odds are of selling.  We are hopeful either they will be in the market themselves, or pass the word along to someone they know.   But do we really need to spend all this money and come up with unique gimmicks to do this?

I would love to hear from Realtors who have experience using these tactics and how much foot traffic it actually generated.  Especially since I just spent my Sunday afternoon baking cookies, printing flyer's, and lighting candles in a lovely home only to have 2 visitors.  So should I break out the BBQ? You tell me