"The OPEN HOUSE"

Imagine this, you hired a surgeon to operate on you and you should  expect that he will explore every avenue to make the operation a complete success. .

In the same token, it is a perception, you are doing an open house  because it is a complete service package you must offer your sellers of doing everything you must do to sell their homes.

I know open houses sometimes don't work. . But sometimes they do and my sellers should expect for me to do one open house in the first two weeks of when the listing is taken.

We prepare our open house as follows:

Friday night, we put several signs around the house. . all my open house signs say OPEN SUNDAY 1to4

All the neighbors and people driving around for the whole weekend will know that a house is for  sale in the neighborhood.

Saturday AM, we walk the neighborhood and drop flyers. .inviting them to the open house. 10 AM is a great time. . we get to talk to a few people and pick a few leads too. (This is my job as a Realtor. .it should be yours too)

Sunday, my clients are sent off to the movies and I ask them to stay away for the whole afternoon.

Preparation is the key. .

•·          Flyers developed by your loan officer. .highlighting the monthly payments and not the price

•·          Cookies by the same loan officer. . (hint: the ones you DON'T like, so you will not eat them all)

•·          Air freshener

•·          Soft Music

•·          If  NFL Sunday. . .muted NFL game for the guys

•·          Registration Book ( a nice leather book. . not a piece of paper)

•·          Comparables

•·          Competition listings  . a few of them, with your name on it and  . "We can show you any of these homes too !"

•·          In case you are thinking in selling?. .free CMA report . . a sample should be printed.

•·          My brochure, my newsletter inside inside a  nice and classy folder. . . to impress the future neighbors that may sell their own homes

•·          A nice letter to leave for the owners. .Thanking them for their efforts to clean the house and some information about how many people visited the home.

I will also write thank you cards for all the visitors that did not have Realtors inviting them to my website www.ReallyNiceHomes.com

These are just a few things we try to accomplish in our open houses. . .but remember that there are many other small things you must do in an open house. Sometimes we go trough this intensive preparation and we have only  2 nosy neighbors and a cat as the only visitors.

It's my job as a Realtor to take that and not complain. .

I give the cookies to the cat.

and I put the names of the neighbors in my database as Have Mets. .then I go home.

PART 4 is next:  feedback report and selling your listing to the buyer's agent.