Open houses are a great way for REALTORS to promote properties for sale, allowing prospective buyers to kick the tires, so to speak. It’s one thing to look at pictures of a home for sale. It’s a whole different experience to test whether the mirrored closet doors roll smoothly on their tracks.
When you walk through a house, it’s a sensory experience. You can see how far the natural light penetrates the room. You can smell whether the pet odor is going to be a problem. You can feel the quality of the carpet under your feet and the weight of the drapes as you pull them closed.
When REALTORS host an open house, it’s an opportunity for them to reconnect with their network of clients and colleagues. Successful REALTORS have large personal and professional networks, and this is part of how they quickly connect buyers and sellers with each other.
In addition to promoting the open house with traditional advertising via radio, print, and online, REALTORS often send postcards inviting people in the neighborhood to stop by. They send another set of postcards to friends and former clients, because you never know when someone might be ready to re-enter the housing market as a buyer or seller. Finally, REALTORS inform colleagues in their sales office and other real estate offices about the open house, in case other REALTORS are working with buyers who would be a good fit.
On blazing hot days, open houses are best scheduled for mornings. I suggest getting up early and opening the house to let in cool, fresh air, and then closing the house down and turning on the air conditioner.
My house is wide and shallow and faces due west with lots of windows. This summer when it was over 100 degrees, my house resembled a large solar oven, making it uncomfortably hot in the afternoon. After I let in fresh air early, I turn the air conditioner to 70 degrees to keep the house as cool as I can for as long as I can. When the sun crests over the roof, I close drapes to keep direct sun out of the house.
For an open house on a hot day, your REALTOR will often bring cool drinks for visitors such as lemonade or iced tea, to make the perusing experience more enjoyable.
As the weather cools, the opposite is true. I still think it’s great to open the house to get fresh air, but then close it down and crank up the heater so the house feels cozy by the time visitors arrive. Your REALTOR will likely bring coffee and cookies to host open houses in late fall and winter. (Sometimes they put a drop of vanilla extract on a few light bulbs, so it smells like the cookies were baked that day.)
I’m sure I don’t have to mention this, but before your open house, make sure the property looks fabulous. Outside, put garbage cans away, mow and weed the yard, and plant some colorful flowers out front. Inside, declutter the house and clean it like you’re having your boss over for dinner. Pay attention to the little things: put toilet lids down, make the beds, and straighten the towels. Any knickknacks should be put away, especially those within reach of children or visitors with sticky fingers. If you have pets, take them to Grandma’s house for the day.
If you haven’t attended an open house in a while, be aware that you may be asked to do more than write your name on a sign-in sheet. A recent law requires REALTORS to formally define their relationship with prospective buyers right from the start. In essence, a REALTOR hosting an open house isn’t supposed to show you the property without a signed buyer-broker contract. So, the REALTOR may provide you with a contract offering these two options:
- I, the prospective buyer, ask you, the REALTOR, to represent me in buying a home.
- I, the prospective buyer, am not working with you, the REALTOR, to represent me in buying a home. (They can still show you around, but they understand you are not interested in working with them.)
Open houses are one of many ways REALTORS connect buyers and sellers, so work with your REALTOR make your open house as successful as possible.
If you have questions about property management or real estate, please contact me at rselzer@selzerrealty.com or call (707) 462-4000. If you have an idea for a future column, share it with me and if I use it, I’ll send you a $25 gift certificate to Schat’s Bakery.