As I discussed a few weeks ago, the value of an open house is often unknown (and perhaps questionable) to home owners, and the Realtors representing them. But at the same time, open houses often get people inside of homes who may not have viewed the home otherwise --- and an important step of a successful sale is to have people view the home.

So --- I'm testing out a new strategy to get potential buyers in the door at the open house . . .



I printed (front and back) 500 of these business card sized mini-flyers advertising the open house. Then, almost all of them were distributed on parked cars in an often packed parking lot near the home that is for sale. As you might imagine, I had a lot of internal conversations and questions about doing this:

1. Is it o.k. to put things on cars in a parking lot? According to the local police officer who I spoke to, yes, so long as a "no soliciting" sign is posted.

2. Will some car owners be annoyed by the mini-flyer on their windshield? I hope not -- I hope they say "wow, that Realtor really works hard to sell the houses he has listed" -- though I imagine some may be peeved. My apologies!!!

3. Will the owner of the parking lot be upset that some might end up in the parking lot instead of the pockets of the car owners? I hope that all of the car owners take their treasured mini-flyer home --- but I do realize that some may end up in the parking lot. As a result, I imagine that I'll either get a call to come pick them up, or a "no soliciting" notice will be installed (or both!?).

4. Will it actually work? Will I be able to generate more traffic to the open house? Will the house sell as a result? This is to-be-determined. The open house started about 19 minutes ago, so I'll have to provide another update later on.

If this new strategy for getting people into open houses does work --- you know that I'll be repeating it to work to sell the other properties I have listed for sale --- if not, I'll be back to the drawing board to think of a new, creative way to market homes!

I am having an open house today (May 4, 2008, 1:00-3:00) for one of the properties that I am marketing, a 5-bedroom, 3.5 bath colonial with 3,796 SF priced at $469,000, and located at 3064 Briarwood Court in Harrisonburg, VA.

I have held several other open houses over the last few weeks, and will have another two weeks from now.

So . . . how effective are open houses? I suppose it depends on how we define effective . . .

Open houses do (unless nobody shows up) get people inside of homes who may not have viewed the home otherwise. The people who are coming through aren't always qualified to purchase the home they are viewing, and they don't always end up having interest in it, but one important step of a successful sale is to have people view the home for sale.

Open houses don't necessarily sell homes. I don't have the exact figure at hand as I am currently writing, but the research shows that only a VERY small percentage of home buyers find the home that they purchase by attending an open house.

Some Realtors see open houses as an opportunity to meet new buyer clients. I suppose that could happen from time to time, but certainly, that doesn't accomplish any of the original goals of the owner of the home.

Here are some interesting stats to consider from several recent open houses:

Property #1 -
Prior to the open house, there had been 3 showings of the property.
During the open house, 4 groups visited.

Property #2 -
Prior to the open house, there had been 7 showings of the property.
During the open house, 4 groups visited.

Property #3 -
Prior to the open house, there had been 6 showings of the property.
During the open house, 10 groups visited.

Property #4 -
Prior to the open house, there had been 2 showings of the property.
During the open house, 2 groups visited.

Property #5 -
Prior to the open house, there had been 18 showings of the property.
During the open house, 5 groups visited.

For several of these homes, the open house generated more prospective buyers inside the home than had seen it to date. However, none of these properties have sold yet, so the open houses didn't accomplish that main goal of selling the house.