The Sacred Open House

March 24th, 2008 categories: Buyers, For Homeowners, Sellers

open house cartoon

What is the goal of an open house?

The chances of selling your home during an open house have to be like 1 in 100.

If the odds are that low, why the heck to do we still hold our houses open? Wouldn’t it be much more efficient to spend that couple of hours that we hold our homes open passing out flyer’s or something? Seriously, think about it. We spend all day Saturday stressing ourselves out trying to make our home appear clean, smell good, and get those vacuum lines in our carpet so we can let complete strangers and nosey neighbors wonder around our homes for three hours? Do we seriously expect that that during those 3 hours the future buyer of our home will be in our neighborhood and be so enthralled by our 4 signs that they will come and visit our home and want to buy it on the spot?

Don’t get me wrong. It could happen. The question is, “is it worth it?”

Truthfully, I bought my home after going to an open house. However, I was already going there because I knew it was for sale. I have had clients buy homes after going through an open house. However, I sent them there meaning we would gone either way.

The truth is that I hold open houses. I will probably hold one open this weekend. I do it because sellers think it is important. Every weekend. NO. But once in a while, sure. Open Houses are the sacred cows of real estate. Its like knocking on wood. Will knocking on wood really ever save you from being jinxed? Of course not. Will holding a home open sale it? Probably not. Its just that sellers are desperate to sell their homes and do not want to leave any stone unturned. I understand.

History: I believe open houses used to work before the days of computer searching. Now, most people will view your home online way before they take their time to drive out to see it. Therefore, make sure you don’t hire some lazy Realtor who won’t spend the time and money to have professional pictures taken of your home. Remember, pictures speak a thousand words. So do bad photos. I have all of my listings shot by a professional photographer with wide angle photos, and have many of my listings staged to show their absolute best. I also advertise my open houses in the local newspaper before holding them open so people actually come.

If you want open houses automatically emailed to you on the weekends you can sign up here. Be sure to click in the “Only Show Open Homes” Box.

If you are looking buy or sale in Ashburn Village, Broadlands, Brambleton, Belmont, Leesburg, Lansdowne, or River Creek you can contact me here.