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Why The Right Reasons Can Create A Captivating Open House!

Open House Success in Grand Rapids, Michigan

In my previous post, I discussed how to determine if a home was a good choice for an Open House. Now, we will focus on the right reasons to hold a home open.

This is something to take seriously. We are asking homeowners to leave their home & let it be canvassed by members of the general public, for whom we can not validate credibility or authenticity, in the hopes that this will create a viable prospect for the sale of their home. If we have not done our homework & prepared properly, at the very least, the effort has been a huge waste of everyone's time.

Some of the reasons commonly given for holding an Open House are: "The Seller's asked me to", "I'm not getting any activity, so I need to hold an Open House, "My clients expect me to advertise their house, so I need to do an Open House," or "I'm not very busy so I have some time to do Open Houses."

Not! None of the above is an optimal reason to conduct an Open House. The Seller's asked me to - No, the Seller's hired you to give professional counsel & direction in the marketing and sale of their home. Can you imagine this reasoning used in the following scenario - Patient to Doctor, "I need you to perform an operation because I've determined that this is the best solution to cure my condition." No MD would acquiesce to a request like that simply because they were asked.

Professionals are hired to provide solutions and create options. They are hired FOR their expertise. Determining the viability of an Open House should be the responsibility of the real estate agent as one part of an extensive marketing strategy.

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Lola Audu, CRS, GRI e-Pro ~ Audu Real Estate

Lola Audu, is the Designated Broker & Owner of Audu Real Estate. Our company specializes in helping people buy and sell homes in the greater Grand Rapids, West Michigan area. We've had the privilege of helping hundreds of clients succeed in their goals of purchasing and selling property including demonstrated success in the negotiation of Short Sale Transactions. You can contact us via e-mail @ info@auduhomes.com or by phone at 616-791-0511.

Posted by Lola Audu~Real Estate Broker/Owner Grand Rapids, Michigan Real Estate on 04/26/2007 10:23 PM

Comments (36)

open houses, marketing, homes for sale, audu real estate, grand rapids, michigan

Originally posted at: Inspired Real Estate For Today: Why The Right Reasons Can Create A Captivating Open House!

This post has been included in Michigan Information Kent County, MI Information Grand Rapids, MI Information

36 Comments on Why The Right Reasons Can Create A Captivating Open House!

APR

2007

Great post with good ideas on holding an Open House. I also like your cute house with hearts in the shutters. Thanks for sharing your expertise and I am going to take to heart your suggestions. I have not been successful with Open Houses the way I would like to be. If I'm going to hold them open, then I need to implement some better strategies.

Hi Cynthia, this hits home with all of us. The statistics indicate that 97% of homes that are held Open are not sold as a result of an Open House. We've sort of ignored this by saying, well at least I'm meeting new prospects. But, I think we really need to start examining how & why we are doing Open Houses. We can't fix something if we don't admit it's broken. Thanks for your comment.

Finally, a voice of reason. Guess I found a company for referrals!

Ps. I like this photo better.

The photo is really cute..... Thanks for sharing Part 2

The real you, how nice!

Great post!

Thankyou so much for the article. It really realigned my purpose in doing open houses! I will take all your suggestions to heart!

APR

2007

I thought this article offered great value for me. i loved what you said about attaching info to the listing sheet. I have been brining additional info with me, but attaching it will encourage them to take it home to read it. Thanks for sharing your expertise in this area!

In class today, our Instructor said he felt that our #1 reason to hold Open Houses should be to get new listings from potential Sellers that we meet....particularly neighbors who will be especially interested in our services because of the great job we're doing with their Neighbors home...I thought his was an interesting angle. Thanks for the post, Lola. Keep up the great work!

FINALLY!!!! A Face!!!!

Wonderful post. I have 4 open houses running this weekend, mostly newer agents running them without much of a clue, you should have seen the look on their faces when I wanted to discuss sign placement, lol. Going to give them a copy of your post if you don't mind.

Lola, I love seeing your pretty face up there! This is a most thorough article on something that I do not enjoy doing. lol Thanks!

Great post and very helpful. BTW, where did you find the visual of the house?

I enjoy a properly advertised open house. You are right, calling the neighbors and inviting them over is the best thing to do for an open house!

I find that though my properties don't sell through open houses, they sometimes get increased activity afterwards as it is doubly advertised. I always use it for my featured newspaper listing that week and have an open house ad, and many times we see showings pick up for a short time afterwards.

Good article on the broader business purposes of open houses. By keeping the right reasons in mind, we can achieve multiple objectives through one simple marketing method.

Great post....I missed how to determine whether or not the home was open house worthy.....going to read that!

Great post, Lola. Glad to SEE you!! :)

I am having the first OH this Sunday on a listing I am bringing on tonight so this was very timely. I am going to trot around the neighborhood tomorrow (about 75 homes) with a personal invitation flyer for the OH. Hopefully I will get to meet some of the folks face-to-face while dropping these off. We'll see.

This is great information, not only to keep in mind for ourselves but to discuss with our clients at the right time and depending on our own personal approach to doing OHs. I am pretty honest with sellers to let them know I don't believe lots of OHs will sell the home nor do the stats support that they work well. They can, but not frequently. I let them know what I will do to make the OH as productive as possible, etc.

Thanks for sharing this - love your graphic.

Jeff

Very well-stated points, Lola. Thanks for sharing your insight.

Thanks Lola, this blog posts is awesome, i totally agree with all the points you have raised, every house does not need an open house.

Gary, Thanks for your comment. We've got to start thinking about this Open House thing differently...intelligently. We would count it a privilege to serve any of your clients and friends who are moving into the West Michigan area!

Dena, Michelle, Maggie, Laurie... I didn't realise that the "butterfly's" removal would create this sort of a stir. :) She's been with me for so long, that .... Well, now you can see the "real me", at least for a time...don't know quite when the butterfly will wing her way back into my life! :) Got to go to appointments...will get back to this a little later. Thanks to all for stopping by!

Yes, but realtors must sometimes jump through loops to keep their customer happy.

I'm glad you found the information helpful Terry. I think in this area, as in other areas of life, if we start out without focus or alignment we tend to drift aimlessly. For most of us, Open Houses are approached without thinking through goals & a game plan & thus become a waste of time.

Lola - I agree totally. We take for granted alot in our business... the one major thing is that it is a Profession and we need to treat it as such.

Thanks for sharing.. have a great day

great article. I never had much success with Open Houses. For what ever reason... However, this may change my thinking.

Hi Laurie, Please feel free to distribute a copy. You may also want to see about linking or contacting the author of this excellent blog post by Amber Steiner which discusses some additonal ideas that I did not incorporate here. It was a Member's Only post.

Diane, the visual on the house is something I played around with creating. I had a picture & then enhanced it to reflect my story.

Congratulations on your new listing Phylena & best wishes for Successful, Profitable Open Houses!

Vickie, Thanks for the comment. Meeting the neighbors is an extremely valuable aspect of doing an Open House...but even this cannot necessarily be taken for granted. One has to put some effort into creating an event which brings even the neighbors across the street over!

Thanks for sharing some great marketing thoughts Chris! You mentioned an important point...that although a property may not sell during a Open House, it will often generate more activity on showings of the home. I'll never forget one memorable weekend in which I held 3 homes open, had limited activity on all 3 & sold 3 other homes the same weekend all of which were not held open. Amazing...but true!

Hi Jeff, Thanks for stopping by, Best Wishes for your Open House this weekend. I hope you have good weather & that as you walk the neighborhood, you have opportunity to meet people.

I too find the statistics disheartening regarding how limited our success in selling through this type of marketing activity has been as an industry. I've often wondered why we have never considered having all the homes that a company has listed Open for 1 day of the month. We'd probably quadruple our success rate with a little "out of the box thinking" on cooperation.

Ana, Thanks for your comment

Terry, Appreciate you stopping by. I wish you the best in your Open Houses!

Maggie, Thanks for your comment. Open houses are not a favored activity...I suspect...of most Realtors. But, they tend to become really fun when you have all sorts of new prospects visiting & talking about our favorite topic...real estate! Like Chris said, even if it's only the neighbors that stop by, they make it an interesting 2 hours & sometimes they have the perfect person in mind to buy the house! We've sold a few homes this way.

Hi John, You make a very important point...An Open House is part of a Broader Business Strategy & Marketing Plan. It either makes financial sense or it doesn't. If we are doing something which never yields any success & yet continue to put time, money & effort into it...it's a form of financial suicide...or at the least very draining & damaging. We really have to re-think what we're doing as business owners & in that context the issues and the choices become much more obvious.

Christy, Thanks for your comment. Please enjoy reading Part 1

Ryan, Thanks for stopping by!

Hi Paul, Thanks for your comment. While every home should not necessarily be held Open, it's a shame that we sometimes miss the opportunity to make the most out of the homes that we should hold Open or Do hold Open. When agent have 50 prospects walk through a home and has failed to capture even 1 lead...well, to put it mildly, there is a BIG problem. Now, that may be the subject of another post...

Daniel, I'm not so sure that our clients want so much to see us jump through hoops as much as they'd like us to be competent & successful in the job they are paying us to do. When we cannot be credible in demonstrating the validity of what we are recommending and/or doing...we often start to feel like we are a part of a "circus" which is where the "jumping through hoops" comes in.

If a client insists on an Open House which is not really appropriate because the home shows poorly or is priced out of range, perhaps we should take the opportunity to indicate that we will be happy to hold the house Open provided they also do what is necessary to ensure that it is time well spent!

Desiree, Thanks for your comment.

Jason, Thanks for stopping by...I'm glad this got you thinking! :)

APR

2007

Lola - great post. I agree with your point of a company holding open all of their listings (or at least a large # of them) on 1 day a month. Out of the box thinking, like you said, it could be an open house blitz and would be cheaper to advertise and probably more effective.

Mike, You've got it right! I've always wondered why Brokers have never strongly suggested this to their agents or gotten together to do this. Agents who have a number of homes would not be able to hold all of them open, but it would be a great opportunity for New agents to help out. As the general public became more aware of this, particularly if there was good promotional efforts, more homes would be far more likely to be sold. This is the thinking behind the Parade of Homes held semi-annually in Grand Rapids by the Home Builders Association which has been hugely successful for builders.

MAY

2007

Yvonne, attach a Listing sheet, your resume of services, recommendations from clients, information about your blog & website....you want people reading and thinking about you long after they leave your presence at the Open House. You can rest assured that they will NOT receive much information from most of the Open Houses they are visiting if current trends are an indicator!

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