One of the most common questions that I get from sellers is, “Are open houses effective when selling my house?” It’s a large debate we have amongst realtors as well. Statistically, only about 5% of sales will occur through an open house, which isn’t a huge number. However, if open houses are done right, they can be a very effective marketing tool for your property. For example, our team sells about 15% of our houses through open houses, which is pretty significant.
Why Open Houses Work
When you’re selling your house, it’s really important to make sure that your house is available to all potential buyers and open houses are a really effective tool to get a lot of buyers through your property in a very short window of time. It’s also a very unintimidating way for buyers to come and view your property. Open houses are especially effective on the first week that your house is listed.
The reason being, a lot of realtors tend to be away or may not be able to show their clients that exact week. Therefore, it still allows their buyers to get through the property without an appointment scheduled with their realtor. The huge bonus for that too is that it allows me, the listing agent, to sell your property to someone else’s buyers. I’ve got a lot more of an invested interest in selling your house than the buyer’s agent does. They don’t care if the buyers buy your house or the one down the street.
Why Some Hate Open Houses
The biggest objection to open houses for most sellers is they don’t want their nosy neighbours coming through the house. The reality is if you are doing an open house, that is going to happen. Though nosy neighbours aren’t necessarily a bad thing! A lot of the time your neighbours will know a friend or family member that want to get into the neighbourhood.
Also, they’re your best advocate for your neighbourhood. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at an open house talking to a prospect from another city and one of the neighbours has walked in and started selling the neighbourhood to that client. What’s better to sell your house than a third party live testimonial from an unbiased source? It’s a huge advantage for you.
The GoWylde team knows how to do open houses right and we’d be happy to answer any questions you have.
