Leading The Way

Dorie, I am a huge fan of Open Houses done right.  And I love the idea of putting up the signs early. 

I am also a huge believer in Open Houses.  I am guilty of not putting out signs early, but I am there every week come rain or shine until the house sells. 

What a great testimonial for the RIGHT way to host Open Houses !

Bravo Dorie :o)

Hi Dorie - My husband and I also love open houses and have good success with them, but we haven't tried putting out our signs early.  Ours don't have the time on them, but we will soon be ordering some new ones to replace a few of ours that have gotten a little bit worn. 

Faded or worn signs are used on purpose by some agents who think that gives the impression that they have been in the business for a long time.  I think it just looks tacky and unprofessional.

Open houses are part of a marketing discipline that you either embrace or you don't. I always chuckle at the agents who say "I never got anything from an open house". Well, for one, the open house is for your seller, not for you -- but done right they can produce enormous benefits in the long run. There is nothing sweeter than telling a new listing prospect about the 50 people you had at a neighbor's open house. And Dorie, like you, I mail on them, blog on them, put signs out early (9:00 is local ordinance), call agents with prospects and offer to host their buyer, and I'll even throw a party if it's in my neighborhood. Like you, all my signs have my name rider and the time of the open (I love it when someone else tapes a paper plate with times to their sign). Congrats for having the fortitude to do opens on a regular basis -- as a fellow believer, I know and appreciate the work!

Excellent advice, Dorie!  We put up our signs the day before to get added exposure.  Of course, we have to drive by a couple of times to be sure that the competition hasn't removed them!! 

Opens are hard work but, when done properly, can be quite rewarding.  We have, however, had a major shift to slow opens this last two years.  We still hold them and our sellers do appreciate knowing that we're truly doing everything that we can to get their homes sold!

In most areas of my market in Greater Seattle the cities have sign ordinances that restrict open house signs to only the time during which the agent is actually at the house.  Fines are steep in some places, such as $100 per sign per incident, plus loss of the sign.  That said, I am a big fan of open houses and doing them well.  Overall, they have been very valuable to my clients.  Just yesterday I had a chance encounter with a family whose house I sold a couple of years ago, to buyers who found out about it from my open house signs, stopped in without their agent, and stayed for an hour while another buyer and their agent were there obviously falling in love with it.  The tension between competing buyers at the open house was wonderful for me, and especially for my sellers.  And the bidding war that followed, which would not have occurred without the open house, yielded the sellers more than 6% above the listing price, even though the listing price was the highest ever (before or since) in its neighborhood of nearly identical homes.

Great suggestions for open houses.  We do not have a sign ordinance so we can put up a sign during the week that says Open Sunday with the hours.

Also, if an agent is looking only to sell the house, they may feel they have gotten nothing, but as stated here, the neighbors and other potential sellers can also come by.

Dorie:

This is definitely a case of - it's not what you do but how you do it. Open houses can be successful if the right effort is put into them and that includes promoting them. It sounds as though you have a great formula for getting the most of them.

Dorie, I also like putting up the Open House signs early enoough for everyone to see.