craigslist or kijiji

Our office did have this happen at least once. The agent was putting up a sign in front of the house the night before. The neighbor came out and said his friend was visiting and could he look at the house THEN, before the open house. The agent said "sure" and guess what, the friend made an offer (and eventually purchased the house) because he didn't want to run the risk of losing it.

Another couple in our office had an open house and people saw it on the website, traveled 2+ hours specifically to see that house. Unfortunately, the house was too small for them BUT they made an offer on another house in the community. That wasn't even "future" sales, that was a sale that weekend resulting from that open house, even if it wasn't THAT house that sold.

Open Houses, like anything else, will work better for some houses than for others, work better in some markets than others, on some days better than others. Giving a blanket statement "They're a waste of time" is foolish. Not everything works in every market - that's true. Farming postcards can be a waste of time for a lot of agents. But that doesn't mean it's always a waste of time.

Know your market, know what works, and work it well.

Hello Perky, do you find that open houses make the best use of time for the seller?

Certainly I can find one or two instances where a buyer was discovered by standing at the local grocery store however I think most people are asking whether open houses can be considered the BEST use of time and BEST forms of solicitation for offers for THAT PARTICULAR house.

In my market it's usually irrelevant to the seller - many of our homes are vacant.

The thread was about the best places to advertise open houses - and someone started saying they were a waste of time. That's what I was responding to, btw...

Don't under estimate the power of an OPEN HOUSE SIGN. I was with a realtor and drop them after 3 months and bought lots of the bigest Open House signs and put on every corner and down the street to my house. I printed color copies of pictures & info on house and served food and sold my house in 2 weeks myself. I had two offers on the house. I did two open houses each weekend but the second weekend I knew they were the ones they wouldn't leave. They wanted to move immediately and I wanted to sell fast it was done within the month.

classified ads in local newspapers. They cost little, and, most of all, they work. Put an ad for 3 or 4 days and you may be astonished at the results. Buyers are looking at those ads. You can advertise there your company and your brand name. But there is a specific order which you should obey when advertising: advertise property first, agent second and company in the third place. If people are recognizing your name, it may go well with everything you sell or offer: prospective clients will stop at a building or a sign that carries your name.

sleepingbeauty