BEACH NOTES ... August 14, 2010 ... Ocean City, New Jersey

OPEN HOUSE in the Gardens for the past two Saturdays ... Ocean City, New Jersey

In one of my summer meetings with the sellers of 313 Gull Road I was asked what can we do to generate more traffic to the property at this time of year.  I responded by saying that with the first two weekends of August approaching, the most rented time of the summer, we should try to have a few open houses.  Of course, it can be difficult to have these for people who are living in the sale property full time.  I suggested Friday, Saturday, or Sunday for both weeks ... all of them, some of them, whatever.

They got back to me and suggested Saturday for both weeks ... and I selected 9:30 AM to 2 PM, a 4.5 hour effort which would catch the bikers and walkers in the morning, and those on their way to the beach as well.  And, of course, you would also get some car traffic too.  We advertised the event in the local papers.

The turnout was great ... 50+ the first Saturday and 40+ the next Saturday.  We were able to catch second home owners here for the weekend, visiting guests staying in single family homes in the Gardens, some rental tenants on their way to the beach, a lot of bike riders moving about the Gardens residential streets, and others walking and driving.  The major plus was that both Saturdays were in the low 80s which enabled me to sit on the front porch to meet and greet everyone.  In fact, on both days we did not use the air conditioning. 

Although I did advertise this on "Active Rain" earlier, I will only advise readers of this posting that they can see the listing by going to www.FrenchSales.com

The summer open house is a great way to pick up "showings" for those properties that are close to the beach or boardwalk.  What happens is that the coming and going in these areas is constant.  In many cases, you will find a vacant sale property elsewhere ... but it is much more difficult to attract visitors because they are not going by the house for any particular reason.  So I just share this great success here in this resort community of Ocean City (NJ) during our busy summer rental season.        dap