We wouldn’t let a stranger straight off the street walk into our home, peruse our bedroom and gain a greater understanding of our interior design flair. So, why is it when we inherently believe that a stranger inside our home, under the premises of an ‘Open Home’ who may be able to afford our pride and joy, is a better option and that it’s okay?
Millions of Homeowners have fallen for this practice as the ‘one and only’ format to sell their homes for way too long, and with complete transparency in mind, open homes are not the most advantageous nor the most effective practices to sell your home and/or property. Why?
- Curious, not Conscious Consumers: Most attendees are more often than not just curious to explore your home to satisfy their stickybeak mentality rather than attending with a conscious, positive mindset to satisfy their actual ‘home hunting’ requirements.
- Time-Consuming: For the Agent and the Homeowners, they’re often time-consuming for no – minimal gain, which doesn’t always make it worthwhile for either party.
- Lack of Sales: Open Homes very rarely lead to immediate sales. I’ve been an agent for ten years and, during that time, have completed hundreds of open homes for my vendors. To date, I have never generated a successful sale from an open home!
These reasons, combined with Covid lockdowns throughout the recent years, have had us review our marketing strategies and move our focus to practices that bring actual returns for our Vendors and Purchasers.
- Virtual Listings: The digital era has transformed the real estate industry, making open houses less relevant. With the rise of virtual tours, high-quality photographs and film, and detailed property descriptions available online, potential buyers can now understand a property comprehensively without physically attending an open home. This allows them to narrow down their options before committing their time to view only the most suitable properties in person.
- Private Viewings: Most viewers now prefer to pre-schedule a private viewing so that they can view and inspect the home in their own time, on their own, without the troves of other prospective buyers. Private viewings also allow for more open communication between the Agent and the viewer, without others intruding and/or listening in on private conversations.
- Digital Marketing: This allows us to have greater control over the types of prospective consumers that we believe would be interested in each home and/or property, which often allows for a quicker sale for our Vendors because time and money aren’t being spent on invaluable consumers, but instead on those who are more genuine.
- Rise Community Magazine: A more traditional method explicitly tailored to our Waikato community, perfect for local vendors keen to generate interest from locals of all ages and stages. It’s also a beautiful format to showcase your property; its exquisite imagery, key selling points and more generate readership from thousands of locals every six months!
For our visual learners (we get you), here’s a mini breakdown of comparing both formats based on the number of consumers relevant to each.
Whilst no one can say that they don’t work, time is stacking up more and more reasons as to why they’re not as an effective format as they once were, back in the day when no one had instant access to the internet, which now is the home for all of your homes (see what we did there)!
