According to the National Association of REALTORS®, only approximately 1% of homes sell as a result of an OPEN HOUSE - which, to be honest, is always interesting to me because ... how in the world would you accurately measure that?
Whatever the case, if we took that statistic and we were to evaluate whether an Open House is actually effective and ‘works’ to sell the house, the answer would have to be - no.
Having said that, if an Open House was completely useless, agents would have long stopped doing them.
So what’s the purpose of an Open House?
Personally, I like to kick off a new listing with an Open House because it does two things:
With the right marketing, it gets massive attention and creates momentum and excitement around the new listing.
Secondly, if it’s a really desirable home, price range and/or location, and it’s safe to say that we can expect a lot of showings within the first few days, it does make things a bit easier for the sellers because instead of having to accommodate 15-20 showings on a weekend, each, typically booking at least a 30-minute time slot, with a scheduled Open House, most of those prospective buyers will typically choose to preview the home during the Open House and then if they are seriously interested, come back with their agent for a more in-depth look.
The 'Nosy Neighbors' Myth
I think the are two reasons home sellers hesitate to have an Open House. Reason number one is that they typically don’t want ‘their neighbors snooping through their home’, and reason number two would be safety concerns - both are, of course, totally understandable. Having said that, if you think about it, an average person knows approximately 500 people, whether that’s friends, relatives, people from church, sports clubs, work, school, social media connections, and you name it.
And while most sellers tend to focus on the more negative aspect of having neighbors come through the Open House, I believe that, at the end of the day, neighbors want to have good neighbors - whether ‘good’ means ‘we hope they are going to be quiet people’ … ‘we hope they don’t smoke’ or ‘we hope they have kids the same age as ours’…
And so, instead of assuming your neighbors are probably just nosy, I like to hand out some feature sheets in advance and extend a special invitation to the neighbors because ... who knows? They might know someone that wants to move to the neighborhood, and if we frame it the right way, we just might open some doors we didn’t even know existed, right?
After all, you always get what you focus on and, personally, I like to focus on the positives, and that just seems to be working a whole lot better for me and my clients.
The second reason sellers are hesitant about Open Houses is safety and that, quite frankly, is a matter of proper professional representation and skill. It is my duty to ensure that you can feel safe and at peace, knowing that everything is well taken care of and your interests and your property are represented professionally and with the utmost attention to detail.
I hope this article has served you and perhaps helped you to look at the topic from a different perspective, and whenever you are ready to move, I’d be happy to dive deeper into the topic if you have any questions and help you make the moving process a truly positive and worry-free experience!
After all, life’s too short!
