If you look at your local MLS marketing and sales statistics you will see that open houses typically don't yield great results for the home being marketed. Many agents do open houses because they are expected to do them. A real estate broker or agent should never host an open house without having a sound plan or strategy. A listing agents top priority should be to sell the home they are marketing. Sounds obvious, right?Unfortunately, many real estate agents forget their fiduciary duty and when this happens an open house quickly turns into a self serving marketing / prospecting tool for the hosting agent. They switch their hat and use the time to generate future clients. This is probably the reason open houses typically don't yield results for the home being marketed. But if done right, they can certainly yield results for the said open home.
The key to having a successful open house has little to do with putting balloons on the mailbox and handing out colorful flyers. It's all about time. No, this doesn't mean you should schedule the open house for Sunday between 1pm - 3pm, it means limiting access so all prospective buyers are viewing the home at the same time. Your window needs to be small. If need be you can always extend the open house. The ideal length of time for an open house is 1.5 hours. If the open house is packed, interest will be greater. Those who have interest will also move quicker on making an offer if they see that they aren't the only ones looking at the home. You don't want to be "that" home who does 4 hour open houses every Sunday. Weekly open houses are a sign of inexperience and desperation. Prospective buyers will notice and their offers will reflect this.
Our data and marketing insight comes from MLS data, in-house marketing for our flat fee listing MA and full service residential programs. We are data junkies and trendspotters. While we do business in List on MLS without Realtor in MA and New Hampshire our tricks of the trade apply to all markets throughout the United States.
