Open house events are a critical part of the home sale process as they get prospective buyers through the door. When you use a licensed real estate agent to sell your home, they will take care of all of the details for you and will most likely ask you to leave the house the day of the event. If you’re selling the house on your own, the planning is all up to you. Setting up an open house can be stressful, but at least it doesn’t have to be expensive. With a little bit of creativity and ingenuity, you can pull off a successful open house on a shoestring budget. Here are a few open house tips to get you started.
Get the Word Out
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If nobody knows that you’re holding an open house, you can expect an empty home on the big day. Start by telling everyone that you know, including friends, family and co-workers, about the event. It’s quite possible that several people in your network know others who have expressed an interest in moving. Post flyers on the bulletin boards in your local library, stores and other commercial venues, and take out an ad in your local newspaper. Open house signs are an important part of the process and will probably eat up much of your budget, but they’re a necessary part of the process.
Exploit technology to let everyone know about the open house. Start by listing the open house event on the major real estate websites such as Movoto and the Google and Yahoo portals, and then tap into all of the major social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Building a website for your home is simple and inexpensive using website builders such as Blogger or WordPress. Take lots of photos of the property and upload them to the website, and then add the URL to every piece of paper you hand to prospective clients. Think of it as your home’s business card.
Stage the Scene
You don’t have to be a professional interior designer to stage your home perfectly for your open house. One of the most important open house tips to remember is to declutter every room. You want prospective buyers to be able to envision themselves living in the home instead of seeing your family’s personal belongings everywhere. That may mean strategically removing some pictures, storing away that collection of ceramics and taking the coats off of the coat rack and stashing them in a closet. Think clean and streamlined.
Give your home a lived-in and welcoming look. Set your dining room table with your best china and linens, and put a bowl of fresh fruit in the kitchen. Fresh flowers can be expensive, but there are open house tips for that. You’re only going to need the flowers for a portion of a day, so contact your local florist and ask if they would be willing to part with any older, unsold flowers at a discount.
Be Prepared
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Though you might get some gawkers, most of the people attending your open house will be prospective buyers or local real estate agents who are representing other buyers. These folks want information and you’ll want information from them, so make sure you have what you need on hand. There are plenty of free templates on the Internet for sign-in sheets for Open Houses to help you collect contact information for those who attend your event. Using Microsoft Powerpoint or Word, create an information sheet for your home that contains all of the information a prospective buyer might want to know. Add at least one picture and the address of your website or the URL for the property on Movoto. Keep a stack of these next to your sign-in sheet, and make sure that everyone who attends knows that they’re available.
Let Them Eat Cake
While snacks aren’t essential to a successful open house, they’ll certainly make a good impression on the people who attend. Even though you don’t have a lot of money to spend on food, you can make the food memorable by making it relevant to season so that it has a story to tell. Put out a platter of your favorite homemade cookies around the winter holidays, or make bite-size raspberry-and-blueberry tarts to celebrate the summer. As far as beverages go, you really don’t need more than a pot of coffee and some bottled water to keep everyone happy.
Don’t Forget the Details
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One of the most important open house tips to remember is that the smallest details often leave the biggest impression.
- If you have a dog or a cat, ask a friend to take them for the day or board them at a local kennel. Remove any pet beds and dishes, wash all linens the pet might have been on and rent a rug cleaner to give your rugs a fresh, clean smell.
- One of the worst open house nightmares imaginable is having a prospective buyer open a closet only to have a mountain of junk fall on them. Check all of your closets—just as your visitors will—and make them look neat, organized and spacious. If you have to store some of the things at a friend’s house or in your car, it will be worth the effort.
- Don’t overpower your home with scented candles and air freshener. You want your home to smell clean, but that doesn’t mean that it has to smell like a flower garden in the spring.
- If you have a device that lets you play slideshows or display photos on your television sets, put it to good use. Set your TVs to rotate through photos of your home throughout the seasons, This will let your prospective buyers see the beauty of the property with crisp, white snow on the ground in the winter, vibrant foliage in the fall or the beauty of a blooming garden in the summer.
An open house event is the time to show off your home at its best and hopefully get a few people interested in further discussions about buying your home. By following a few tried and true open house tips, you can put on an event that’s successful without blowing your budget.
