Do Open Houses work? I say - YES! For creating urgency in new listings!
July 5th, 2009 by Sue Adler
Categories: Buying a home in this market, Selling a home in this market
Comments:
I just came across an article in the Wall Street Journal on Why Open Houses Still Work. After reading the article and the comments that followed, I needed to add my two cents on this subject.
My experience has been that Sunday Open Houses along the New Jersey midtown direct trainlines DO work with a big BUT.
When a new listing comes on the market... let's say on a Tuesday. Then we have the Realtor Open House on Thursday, the blast email goes out to all of the realtors and then the data base of potential interested buyers on Friday, and of course its advertised on all of the sites that a consumer would think to search ( our local www.gsmls.com , www.realtor.com , www.trulia.com , www.zillow.com , www.nytimesonline.com and www.craigslist.com , plus www.sueadler.com of course 
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Its the FIRST weekend of this HOT new listing and buyers ( yes, neighbors too, but who cares?) are excited to see it whether or not their realtor is available to take them. For this reason, the listing agent should send out a blast email to the other realtors asking them to forward this open house invitation to their buyers and tell them to just mention their name at the door. Busy realtors who dont have teams may not be available to show their buyers this great new listing on Sunday. Its the listing agents' job to make it EASY for buyers to see that new listing when it first comes out, becuase that is how the sense of urgency is created, which gets the best price possible for the seller, yes, even in this market!
This just happened on www.sueadler.com/15chetwynd , www.sueadler.com/29Maplewood , www.sueadler.com/454walton , www.sueadler.com/35kensington , www.sueadler.com/69Harding , www.sueadler.com/1burroughs , www.sueadler.com/7fairview in the past few months. All of these homes had multiple offers after the first weekend's open house.
Now here's where the "BUT" comes in....
For rest of this article, visit: http://njexperts.com/2009/07/05/do-open-houses-work-i-say-yes-for-creating-urgency-in-new-listings/
Sue Adler http://www.sueadler.com
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Makes a lot of sense. I was about the answer "No" but I can't argue with your success. I guess I have to start putting more effort into open houses now. As if I didn't already have enough to do. Thanks a lot Sue.