Real estate agents miss the point of open houses

You can find strong opinions about holding open houses throughout the real estate community.  Some will say that open houses do not sell the home you are holding open, so they are useless.  I believe those agents are missing the point as well as missing opportunities to sell homes.

The fact is very little of our marketing and prospecting is geared toward selling a specific home.  The for-sale sign we place in our seller’s front yard results, more often, in a buyer settling on a different home than the one they called about.  However, the yard signs used that generated that lead is how homes are sold. 

The same goes for open houses.  The buyer I thought for sure would buy the home I have open may or may not come to my open house, and he may visit another agents open houses and one of those agents will then qualify the buyer, determine exactly what the buyer is looking for and then may show them my listing.  If that agent did not feel holding open houses were worth it, the buyer and my seller may not have found each other so quickly.

Are they a waste of time?  Perhaps if all you do when there is sit and stare blankly at the walls until visitors arrive, then yes your time is being wasted.  A good agent however will use the time between visitors to write thank you notes, call their center of influence or draft a new blog post.  There is plenty of work we can accomplish at an open house until the buyers visit. 

If you want to have a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, as they say, and never sell a home from an open house, never hold one open.  If you want to guarantee you do sell a home or several homes from an open house, hold them open, often and continue to improve your open house marketing plan.  You will see the point soon enough by way of numbers on your commission check.