Open House, a NAR report.

I read today a report about the effectiveness of open houses. and if they are useful or not. I will not go into detail, but I will state that I believe Open Houses can and will potentially lead to future clients and business. I think the days of holding traditional Open Houses is fading. New and fresh ideas are going to be invented and experimented with in order to find out what is going bring buyers walking through our Open House doors.

Personally I have good luck with Open Houses, I have had held the old tried and true Open House with refreshments, and snacks and have had on average at least two families/couples walk in and look around. This is with out advertising the Open House in paper, on-line, or anywhere. I just place signs on key streets that have the most amount of traffic. I also try to not hold Open Houses when big events are on or will be on, anything that could possibly cut the amount of traffic that would be coming. 

The hardest part of any one walking through door is to qualify the lead. Sort out the window shoppers with the qualified leads. And selling the qualified leads on our services. Making them understand that if this home doesn't tickle their fancy there are others that could. This is why I print out MLS copies of other homes in the area. Homes that are below the Open House price and some above that price.

I do not know if Open Houses will last or what we can do to make them better, but I believe they do hold some value. Anything that brings us into contact with consumers is a good thing. We just need to find out what will bring more people in those doors. Maybe its have a neighborhood open house tour, where different agents from different companies with homes in the same area hold Open Houses on the same day. This can even become a block party, or a dinner with refreshments at one house, appetizers at another, and the main course at another. This is just some ideas I have heard. If you have any comments or ideas of what can work or what what has worked for you please share your ideas with all of us.

Here is the link:

http://www.realtor.org/rmodaily.nsf/pages/News2007101501?OpenDocument