Are You an Open House Master?

After 6+ years in industry I have done a quite a lot of open houses and have sold my listings.

I think the Open House strategy has changed due to the internet.  Most buyers have already seen the home that is being held Open on the internet and it captivated their interest enough to SHOW UP.  While the sheer numbers that attend an Open House are lower, those that do show up to view the home are much stronger candidates to buy.  Many realtors state that they hold Open Houses to get buyer leads but I hold an Open House to sell that home. 

Open houses are a tremendous opportunity for the "anonymous buyer" to check out a house before contacting a real estate agent for additional assistance.  Those of us who are lucky enough to have grown up in a culture of open houses find more prospective buyers because our enhanced open house systems have a buyers agent on-hand to meet and greet unrepresented buyers and follow up systems to engage the unrepresented buyer, and the represented buyer also through his exclusive buyer's agent.  Unless someone has an exlcusive buyer's agency agreement, they are still fair game and if one of my buyers agents gets them to make the offer first, on our contracts, all the hard work you thought you put into this client will not get you procuring cause!!!

I always read the weekly E-mag fron Realtor.com.  I look forward to this one as well.  Thanks for all the fantastic information.

Given how controversial this avenue of our business is, I can't wait to here what you come up with. I've actually had a bad "Broker's Open" experience, so let's see what our resourceful community can come up with!

In my office we have Office Open Houses weekends every other week.  The office goalis to have at least 12 open houses on those weekends.  I don't mind doing Open Houses, but like others, they don't seem to pull a lot of people to them.  The ones that do attend don't want to give out any information to you.  Can't seem to get a phone number or email address.  Sometimes they seem like a huge waste of time.

My first year in the business, I had open houses nearly every weekend and never got any business off of them so I stopped.  I don't see where other agents are using them very effectively, either, so I don't think they work very well in this area in general.  However, I am always open to new ideas and I would love to hear what others are doing to make open houses attract buyers, if they are selling the homes, and how they are able to pick up prospects this way.

It will be exciting to see what unusual things our colleagues have come up with to drive the right traffic to their opens. The last 3 listings we have had sold to buyers who came through our opens with out an agent. Each buyer was waiting for the open to see it. As some else mentioned above - I think that with the popularity of the Internet and pictures posted online we are actually getting a higher percentage of "real" buyers. The "Looksies" can do their spying online now.

I'm not a huge fan of open houses...but the internet seems to be empowering the consumer to some degree!  I know people that do not want to use a 'buyer' agent because they feel like they can get a better deal by working directly with the listing agent!

I look forward to seeing the results of this study! 

I am looking forward to this too, it will be something else to read about.

This should be interesting I look forward to it. Hopefully the folks here will just share here at A/R.

I found the points on SEO in the recent Realtor magazine very helpful!  Thanks for the publication.   I always ask myself if I’m covering all my bases.   Articles like this are great because they allow me to go through a checklist so to speak.  In this case I found out that I am missing a Site Map on my site (www.richardvanseenus.com).  So now I’m working on that.

Less than 1% of all homes sell at Open House!!! I have been in the business fro 21 years (FULL TIME) why not do a Masters Series on something that works? I really can't believe anyone would spend any time on this subject.

I have been in the business for 13 years and have had no luck with open houses so I hardly ever do them.  I would love to do them and be successful so I look forward to learning from those that do.

Open Houses are always a love or hate marketing tool. But that is just the thing....they are a tool. And how well we use the tool determines our result. We owe our clients all the exposure of their home that we can do. And in the end we can pick up buyer clients for other homes.

BTW...I do not like them but will do them doing all the basics to make them successful. I am looking forward also for new and different ideas.

Does anyone think that Realtor magazing is "out of touch" to still be talking about open houses?  Does anyone see them ever coming back as a realistic marketing strategy?  I'm still interested in finding a way to get back into them and make them more effective, as I'm not totally convinced they are dead, but it seems as if nearly all Realtors have written them off as a waste of time and chuckle every time someone brings them up.  That's why I'm surprised our magazine wants to "feature" them.

I have never sold a home at an open house - but have picked up a few buyers to work with.  I rarely do them anymore - almost all my leads come from by website and blog.  If a seller believes in open houses, I promise to do one - if that shows potential I will consider more.  I had a recent listing where this was the case and I had about 3 people stop by and one was a curious neighbor.

We had a fabulous time spending two days with Realtor Magazine. Take a look:

First Active Rain Open House Gathering - Day Two and Done!

Margaret

Thank you Realtor Magazine for the video of the First Active Rain Open House is here

Margaret