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Hold an Open house, tell the seller to remove all valuable items from the home, if its a large place, why dont you ask a new agent to help you out this way you dont have to watch everyone, you will actually have some help for free helping you show the place. And you do open houses to satisfy the seller, but from this open house you can get a buyer for another property, and chances are this buyer is also selling his own property. BAM THATS TWO DEALS FROM YOUR ONE OPEN HOUSE.
I am not an agent, but I read this from the perspective of a frequent seller. I have never and will never allow an open house at my property (other than a brokers' open house when first listed) for all the reasons listed above. I do not want nosy (or possibly dangerous) strangers roaming unattended through my home unless they are serious buyers accompanied by an agent. All open houses do is generate prospective buyers for other properties - I have realtor friends who admitted this to me this years ago and say they don't waste their time with them. It is a tool of last resort for a property that is isn't moving. Rarely does a property sell through an open house, in spite of what you may see on HGTV. And in my experience visiting open houses agents rarely do leave the kitchen. Price and stage a property correctly and it should sell in a reasonable time frame without the need for one. I speak from experience, my last two homes sold in less than a week above the listing price. Not only is robbery a concern, I also recall hearing of instances in California where couples would go to open houses with the intention of having a quickie in a remote area of the house for the thrill of it - great!!!!
LOL. A quicky? I'm have no idea how big these homes are, but really, how often do you have 10 people at once enter the Open House? And yes Open Houses do Generate Business for us for other properties. If you have an amazing property in a great area that is well priced, absolutely you probably wont' need to hold an Open House.
I've held a couple of open houses and find them to be rather fruitless, every so often I will make a good contact for maybe a future transaction, that is the exception and not the norm. I often discourage sellers from doing open houses instead opting for the "listing celebration" where we through a "party" when we first list it and take advantage of the buzz of a new listing to get as many people through the door and excited about it as we can. I work with a party planner to create a theme that helps keep it in th minds of those that go through. This is often on the higher end homes because of the cost, and since we have more traffic there is less chance of theft or other problems. Just my $0.02
Just held an Open House yesterday.
We made sure the home was advertised in the local newspaper as well as the Net.
we offered a "free cruise" for a week and all expenses paid.
Anyone care to guess how many potential buyers came to the "OH"?
If they are anything like my OHs, I would say ZERO.
Several years go, my Realror pushed hard to have us have an open house to sell our home. My husband was out of town on business the day she selected and she told me I should leave the house during the OH. My youngest was napping and before he was awake, a family came in with 3 kids. Those kids tore into my children's playroom, while the parents 'looked' through my home. I found the mother gong into my bedroom bureau drawers. Needless to say, I kicked them out immediately and the Realtor along with them. I think they heard words that they probably hadn't heard before. I threatened to call the police too.
Will not use OH to sell........not worth it!
Wow, that's sad, but probably the state of things today. We've had several realtors assualted lately.
I love Open Houses !
I will do Saturday and Sunday every weekend until the house is sold.
Not only do you get to meet all the neighbors, but buyers and sellers, and Investors. It's great for the realtor and gives the home plenty of exposure.
If I was concerned about safety, I would bring along another agent . I haven't had that experience though.
Here in Louisville we've had a rash of junkies looking through the medicine cabinet!
I always tell my clients to get all valuables out of the house and that includes drugs. Hide them if need be but don't leave them visible. Open houses don't sell houses they sometimes get us clients but that's okay. I watch who comes in and where they go in the house. If there are several people in the house and it's a property likely to get a lot of people through it we have two placed in the house. I am always near the front door greeting people, talking to them and watching. We've been lucky with no issues but I have known others with issues.
I enjoy open houses. Most of the open houses I've done have been vacant though. If not, it's always recommended that the owner remove anything of value that could easily be stolen. I also believe that open houses shouldn't be done alone -- even if it's not another realtor, have a friend or relative.
That being said, my open house last week had nearly 20 groups of people pass through in just a few hours! We actually wrote an offer on the spot. It was very exciting and all the buyers walking through seemed to be excited by the turnout too.
Open houses are great, just need to be cautious..
LOL, omg.... Renee, YOU ARE IN HENDERSON, NEVADA..... theres no one out there buying... 20 groups of people???? What are groups of people????? WOW.... thats a fairytale if Ive ever heard one....lol
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Why Open Houses have out lived their usefulness!
scott daniels, "floridalistforless"
Real Estate Agent
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Five years ago we used to hold an "Open House" every weekend with the hopes of attracting a buyer,many times the "Open House" enabled us to network the area for future sellers.
We never had much luck selling the homes during an "Open House,which was the sole purpose of conducting them.I read an article in a Real Estate magazine which mentioned "less than 1% of Open Houses" actually lead to a sale. To be honest we were so naive we never believed people came to "Open Houses" with any other intentions,except to look at the house.
The last two years our opinion changed. On several occasions we had families walk in to our "Open House" loading up on refreshments,pretend to look around and leave once they stuffed their bellies.
We held a BBQ onetime in which we had 25 people show up, none remotely seemed interested in looking inside the "Open House" they were there for the "Hamburgers and Hot Dogs". I soon realized serving food at an "Open House" wasn`t too smart!
Twice, I felt as if I was being set up.I had a couple who attempted to distract me. One time a husband and wife team came to our "Open House", the wife started becoming very friendly with me, she flirted took my hand and asked me to show her the pool, while hubby started wandering towards the master-bedroom, I immediately refused her generous offer and kept my eye on Hubby! After 30 minutes of playing "cat and mouse with this couple, I finally asked them to leave! It was our opinion they were there for one thing and one thing only to rob this house!
Another time we held an "Open House" in which an entire family of 6 showed up and began to run around the home.
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