Open House Excitement

Awwwww........been there. There was some great feed back after my blog post also, you can read it here.

Pete Willner
Who Will? Pete Will!
Broker Direct Real Estate
www.petewill.com

 

I'm sorry that happened, but I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone! I myself been there, and it's just bad, but what can we do you know?! Sometimes it doesn't happen but there's other times you're gonna have a better luck. I always play the tetris on my phone, when there's nothing to do.

Colleen taught us a trick that we use at Open Houses.  We treat it as time to get things done.  We bring a list of clients that we haven't spoken to in a long while.  We call, if we talk to them we write them a hand written note.  If we can't get them on the phone, we write them a hand written note.   This way we haven't wasted time, we have used it as an opportunity to keep in touch.

Since you ate the cookies, I have just one piece of advice ...

Don't fix/take hot mulled cider to a vacant open house that has been winterized (that means the water is off & bathrooms don't work).

Mike, such are the joys of playing the Open House Game of Chance. It can be a luck of the draw much of the time. Ask yourself, what could you have done to attract more attention? Think outside the box. Get creative.

Rich Jacobson, www.KitsapLife.com

 

Make sure to promote it in weekly papers....and get no less than TEN directional signs planted in the road....

100- 200 direct mailers to others in the area would do well also....

A loan officer on hand to do pre-qualifications is nice...tea, lemonade and cookies to munch on....

Scented candles in EVERY room........ if not the candles then cookies (pilsbury dough cookies on aluminum foil, not directly on the pan) in the oven with the heat set to 180 degrees is a great way to NOT bake the cookies, but put the scent of them in the whole house....

A good radio set to easy listening music to complete the mood.... and there you have it...

MAKE sure you have plenty to flyers and all the contract forms to take care of every concievable situation....

(A laptop with a wireless card is a PLUS if you have one to access MLS listings of homes that are in the area that are comparable if they don't like THAT house...another agent to stay with the house is a good idea too so if you take a prospect out to see a home, the Open House is still covered....)

hehehehehe...and you are off to the races!!!!!! :-D

 Alexander Harb "The Knights Team" Ldr., PSEM®, E-AGENT

 

Yep it is a good time to practice those games.  it is highly unlikely that you are going to sell a house at an Open House or even get leads from it. Most of them that I stop by there isn't anyone their. I do it because it is a great opportunity for me to meet a Realtor that I have not met before. So I am there to meet Realtors not buyers. But having said that it is a necessary evil to calm down the Seller whose House isn't selling.

Sounds like you could have used a visit from me at this  one, if nothing else you would of had company and we could have talked about mortgages.

Mike, welcome to the business. My first sale was an open house. It doesn't happen often but it does happen. When one of the agents I mentor is holding an open house, he or she will print up door hangars inviting the neighbors for refreshments. On the door hangar it basically says "you know you are curious what it looks like inside and what it is selling for so stop by for some cookies, all the neighbors are going to anyway."

We get a good response from this. Once we get them in the door we offer to sign them up for our 'neighborhood' update email so they receive an email wherever someone lists or sells a home in the neighborhood.

Good Luck.

Many Realtors don't do Open Houses, and now you know why.  Rick and I have sold houses during open houses, so like Tracy said, it does happen.  We have a listing now that is really strange.  One week we'll have 15 people come, and the next we get none.  Last week I made an e-mail flyer (in addition to advertising it) and sent it to both realtors and local friends and past customers asking them to come by and make me company.  There were so many cars parked in the driveway that it created an incredible amount of traffic.  In this market, it doesn't hurt to be creative.

Ines