Real NEastate: Do open houses really work? 0
Q: My home has been on the market for almost a year now. I fired my last real estate agent because he never did any open houses and hired one that does an open house every other week. It has been six months with the new agent, but no offers. Do open houses even work?
A: According to the National Association of Realtors® Profile of Home Buyers and Home Sellers, only 12 percent of home buyers went to open houses to search for their homes, and even fewer bought at open houses. Although it may not be a complete waste of time to hold an open house or two to draw attention to your listing, an open house is not the end-all, be-all in marketing your home for sale.
The percentage of home buyers who used the Internet to search for a home was much higher at 74 percent. And 45 percent who saw a home online made an appointment to view the home in person. Hopefully you’ve hired an agent that knows it’s smart to market your home on the internet.
The average home buyer today will search for three months for a home and will see an average of 15 houses. If you want one of them to buy yours, the best and easiest thing for you to do to sell your home is price it correctly. I know I must sound like a broken record because I say this all the time but, if your home is not priced right, today’s home buyers will not buy it. No matter how smart you’re marketing it.
Stacey McCarthy is a real estate agent with the McCarthy Group of Keller Williams. Her Real NEastate column appears every Wednesday on NEastPhilly.com. See others here. Read other NEast Philly columns here.
I made an offer on a house, my offer was refused, and then I went to the open house the realtor had. I did not officially attend the open house, I stayed across the street and watched to see how many folks showed up. Not a single person showed to see the home. The realtor called me later that day and said he had a wonderful turnout at the open house and asked if I was still interested in the home. I told him NO. We live in that house today since it was still on the market a month later. We made a second offer and everyone was happy. We found this house on the internet just as the story above says and the site had lots of photos of the house inside and out. We went to see it the first time with our own realtor. The house sold itself, the realtor was not really necessary. Realtors are marketers, they do not SELL your home for you. Your home will sell itself at a decent price if it is in a desireable location and is well kept. Your realtor should be used as an advisor to help you get the most for your home as possible, but if they are not masters of marketing you are sunk. Another benefit is if your realtor has sold other homes in the area, then they may have a good list of referrals from previous clients. George and Martha love their home they bought from A1 realtor; so their friends Bill and Hillary are looking for a home in that neighborhood as well. Remember you’re in a buyers market so don’t plan on getting the money you would have gotten 5 years ago. GOOD LUCK.
By the way, Stacey McCarthy is doing what a great marketer would do; giving sensible advice on a website to increase peoples awareness of her service and develop a large network of clients. Kudos to Stacey for providing this info.