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Does an 'open house' really help you sell your home more quickly
Can anyone share good and bad experiences??
We are currently trying to sell our Jersey shore home, and have mixed feelings about having an 'open house'...
Sometimes however those nosy neighbors have friends or folks at work who they tell about your house and you get an interested, qualified buyer. So, answer, sometimes yes, sometimes no. In this market, I'd do it. I plan to when I list my house.
as a potential buyer, I've been to a bunch of open houses recently. They seem more geared for the agent to get clients, as opposed to selling the house. I like to look at a lot of pictures online, then waste time going from place to place.
Does an 'open house' really help you sell your home more quickly
Can anyone share good and bad experiences??
We are currently trying to sell our Jersey shore home, and have mixed feelings about having an 'open house'...
Open House is a MUST at current market, and that's the first requirement you make on your listing agent.
However, the correct way to hold open house is to "do marketing two weeks" BEFORE hold an Open House. Many listing agent are lazy or got used to crazy market, they just place sign outside right before the day is IRRESPONSIBLE.
Knowing that many neighbors may be the best "referrals", hold an Open House with coffee, donuts or bagels ...etc. You want to get as many people to visit your unit as possible like a "party", after all, all you need is 3 buyers, but the buyers would like to see many people interested in seeing the house.
Take down all the email address of visitors or just anyone who saw your home, realtors, plumbers, kids' friends or parents ...etc. and create a Yahoo!Groups and invite them to join. So that you can continue broadcasting the status of your house and inviting prospective buyers to revisit your house at later Open House. With a cost effective way to keep all informed, you will see your house sold when the number of group reach about 50.
Why? Your neighbor or whoever saw your house in best position to refer their relative, colleagues or friends who they know looking to buy to you. And, these days, all have emails, so with your "private for sale yahoo group", when you broadcast your next Open House, they can quickly forward to people they know may be interested in.
In the "description" of your group, be sure to describe the "facts" of your house, community, and give "links" such as school district" driving direction to nearby train ...etc. Facts only, NO sales pitch. Also include nice pictures.
While you continue holding open house (check the weather report) and hold open house on every sunny Sundays and broadcast the invitation by Friday night thru your yahoo group.
Open House is very very important, and you should not ignore the power. Also obtain a recent sales list of your town and provide to people came to Open House so that they will be educated. If they can not afford your house, that's ok, this will help them to buy your neighbors that will help them and maybe reduce competitors. Think about this, if all who came to your open houses eventually bought all your neighbors, then it would be your turn. right?
If you need more detail info on how to do this, I would be glad to help you and show you more tips.
as a potential buyer, I've been to a bunch of open houses recently. They seem more geared for the agent to get clients, as opposed to selling the house. I like to look at a lot of pictures online, then waste time going from place to place.
Great! This tells nice high resolution pictures of house is very important. After all, it is not no cost for buyers to buy a home, and Internet seems to be one very powerful cost effective tool for many prospective buyers to search. And, your private for sale yahoo group would also has the power for prospective buyers who saw it on Internet to join and post questions for you to answer, same as those neighbors who came to your open house to post and send you questions. You need to highly moderate the group so that ads or porn ...etc will not let in.
To certain extend, the buyer will have to have a realtor to represent to make an offer, so the open house would help a lot on both side. The buyers came to your open house may buy your neighbors which is fine.
Could there be plenty of potential buyers, whom just dont want to be tied to a realtor?
Most serious buyers would have no problem to use realtor, after all, once a property listing with realtor, the buyer need their realtor to make offer.
Besides, if a buyer has his own realtor, all other realtors, by regulations, can NOT solicitate business. And buyer can change realtor at any time if they are not happy with current one.
The best way to sell your house is to put a fair market price on it. Any house with curb appeal in decent condition and priced correctly has been moving quickly (and with bidding wars) even in today's market.
No one will even go to your open house if you list it at delusional 2005 prices.
True to certain extend. One of listing agent's job is the "slash down the listing price" althought they may tell you "listing at the right price". If your listing agent tell your to list $180,000 on the condo neighbor sold $200,000, you can sell it $180,000 by yourself that will save you commission.
When your house "under listed", normal buyers will not see it before other agent or flippers.
Keep in mind, with lazy listing agent do little marketing, if any, no matter how low your your price, it won't go.
e.g. I have been curious why Society Hill Society Hill at Piscataway has some very nice 2br 2ba condos $50,000 under market price, not yet sold? whereas many other communities like Maple Grove almost sold out!!
Then, I took a look at realtor.com, Gee! most units at Society Hill, the listing agents there are too lazy to even bother to take pictures, and even worse realtor.com place the ones with nice pictures first by default, not ranking by price.
Well, on the other hand, if I were buyer, I would pay close attention to units with lazy listing agent did not bother take pictures. I could easily get a great deal for $50,000 lower...
I can't think of any reason not to hold an open house, especially in this market.
We just sold our home in 2 weeks. Our realtor's strategy (which we used 5 yrs ago when the market was hot, and again now): list the house on monday, hold a broker open house on Tuesday (or whenever your area holds them), then have an open house that Sunday. The idea is to come on very strong- even have the realtor put a large photo ad in the local paper- and maximize the offers you may get. We were able to get multiple offers even in this slow market, and the person who ended up buying it came first at the open house.
If your home does not sell in a month, your price is probably too high. Depending on how urgently you need to sell, you will need to consider a reduction. If your home has nothing special about it- the lower price will create a draw- it is a very competetive market.
Good luck!!
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nosy neighbors show up
