Do any agents ever prepare your listed houses for open houses/Realtors previews? Cleaning, deodorizers, bringing in new furniture, and that sort of thing? Does it help with sale in your opinion? Just wondering if any agents do this.

I might tidy up, plug in a few air freshener thingees, rearrange some furniture in a house nobody lives in but other than that, no. What sells a house is the right price, location, and demand. If there is too high of a price for its condition and location there will be no demand no matter how pretty the living room is staged.

I have cleaned up the place prior to my open house. Other than that not to extend of rearranging the furniture, that is already done as a part of listing their home. I do turn on all the lights, window treatment and brighten the place up.

I did an Open House for an agent once and showed up and the house was a mess. I show up about 30 minutes before the scheduled to gay things up. When I informed the owner that the house was not ready for an open house, she informed me that the agents job was to clean up the house for showings? I told her there would be no Open House Today.

The agent was upset with me, so informed me our job was to sale the house, even if it met doing cleaning somebodies house? I won't go that far.

What exactly do you do when you:


Around here, we would have to allot more time than 30 minutes for that.

That's a tough one. As a Realtor you could look at it this way. It is our job to advise our clients on the best way to go present and market their home for the best outcome. If that means hiring a professional cleaning service to help tidy up the house then that in itself can be a good thing. Heck you could even include it in your listing presentation as to why they should chose you as their agent. Or maybe you could recommend that they hire a cleaning service to tidy up their home. Or maybe you could add that fee at the COE if you do indeed sell their property. Of course you would disclose this upfront to seller.

REO, I too would like you to elaborate on this idea of having to "gay things up." I like it.

It could be a new HGTV show:

Gay This House!

I have put away vacuum cleaner, shoes, shower accessories, and small kitchen appliances. I put them back in place after the open houses. Come to think of it, I should have left the things put away, as a hint.

Depends on the season. It comes down to though to adding a scent via a candle. A basket of something (Flowers, apples, small pumpkins, whatever). The basket is then given away though in a drawing. Its low cost to me and encourages people to give up their info. The worse the house, the bigger the giveaway basket, its a focal point.

MY wife hits the thrift stores alot. She does crafts alot. I have alot of crap. So I take one of vases, chuck in some nice fake flowers, gay the place up. Give the people something nice to look at and remember as opposed to the negatives.

I make sure ALL of the toilets have been flushed. Got burned on this one early on. Lady comes running out of the guest bathroom. Thinking on the fly, I tell her that I dropped my Baby Ruth into the toilet. If only that were the case...

LOL at 'gay things up'. Although moving a piece of furniture or two is ok specially if it maximizes an existing asset, I would not go as far as to clean up a mess. Not because I am too good for that (I had my share of odd jobs when I was younger) but because it shows a lack of respect to what I bring to the table by way of professionalism and expertise.

James

This is a matter of which home is selected for an open house. I don't allow opens on homes that aren't ready to show.

I once had an open I advertised as the three pigs live here but this sty has great possibilities take a look! Sold it at the open but had some really pissed off sellers when they saw the ad but it wasn't like I hadn't covered the subject a multitude of times.