Open Houses and Web 2.0 Drives Buyers to Our Open Houses

Monika and I are not real big fans of Open Houses but our company is and we usually have 4 big Open House Athons a year. So we decided to sign a couple of listings up for the big Open House Athon. Our company Prudential Verani Realty paid for the newspaper ads in todays Sunday newspaper.

Monika was going to Pelham which is about 20 minutes away and I was to attend the one in Hampstead because I had floor time.  Monika blogged about these two open houses this morning here on AR.  We are  expecting a major storm today so Monika took the Hampstead Open House and we agreed I would do Pelham so if the storm was real bad then Monika wouldn't have to drive so far.

 I was in the office at 10:00 AM and blew up about 12 balloons for us to put on our signs leading to the Open Houses. I printed out some flyers for both houses and I was ready, willing and able to take care of business.

                    Pelham House                                                                         Hampstead House

It was pouring out when we headed to our Open Houses, we were figuring would anyone really show up? On the radio all you heard was the impending storm. I arrived at the Pelham house at 5 minutes of one and I called the sellers as they left a note asking me to call. While I was on the phone with her a car pulled up and grabbed a flyer out of the flyer box. I cut the seller short and ran outside to coax the driver in. No luck, they drove off.

I then called Monika to see if she got to her open house OK and she never answered her cell phone. I found out later, that she was waltzing a buyer through the house.

At around 2:00 pm a couple pulled in where I was and entered the house.

They said "we found out about the open house on Craigslist".  Just so you know I decided about 8:00 PM last night to upload a new listing we got last week on Craigslist and at the last moment decided to update the Pelham and Hampstead houses by adding the Open House times to their listings. I figured what do I have to lose??

Mrs Buyer said she always looks at Craigslist first and then she checks the email updates she receives electronically from a Massachusetts MLS. They have 2 houses to sell and need a home with an in-law apartment.

After they left I reached Monika by phone  and I told her about how my buyers found the Open House on Craigslist. It cracked me up and she got a good chuckle too as I just listed it there last night...as an after thought.

I had one more buyer pull in as I was packing up and walking to my vehicle. It always seems I get someone right at the last minute. Never fails. Never.  This buyer had a buyers agent and was headed over to meet her but her agent was delayed due to the storm and icy roads. She loved the my house. We'll see what happens. She came because she saw my open house signs.

On my way home I called Monika and she was laughing out loud trying to tell me she had 2 more sets of buyers who showed up at the last minute and she wanted me to guess how one set of Buyers found the home. I said I didn't know. She said Craigslist was how they found it. Monika and the buyers talked about Craigslist and how they NEVER read the newspapers as why would you want to pay for one when you can get all the info online for free.  Monika's customers are in their late twenties and stated it had been years since they picked up a newspaper or magazine. They were pretty impressed that we had our open houses listed on Craigslist.  They really liked the house...a very strong potential.

Of all the buyers we had, 6 sets in total, none came from the very pricey newspaper ads our company ran. 2 sets came from our signs, 2 sets from our website and 2 from Craigslist.  

Moral of this story is get your listings on Craigslist and Web2.0 is here to stay. 

Jay and Monika McGillicuddy

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