The Phone’s Been Ringing …
Posted on August 11th, 2007 by Jonathan Dalton
… the question remains whether the offers will follow.
Four of my eight active listings were viewed today, at least to my knowledge (with the vacant homes, I won’t know until the lockbox report comes through tomorrow.) At least one of the homes is among the final cut for one particular buyer. And there were sign calls today, the return of a seemingly dying breed.
One of the buyers, from what I’m being told, is trying to decide between my listing in Avondale and two homes in Surprise. “If only a home like yours was in Surprise,” the agent relayed to me, referring both to the upgrades and the price. Of course, that’s the point. A similarly upgraded home in Surprise would cost substantially more than the home I have listed in Avondale. What ifs are great, but there’s also the reality to deal with.
Loyal readers will be stunned to hear I raised the possibility of an open house with one of my sellers. I’m proud to say education has paid off in this case as they’re not inclined to pack up the kids and the dog and disappear for hours on a Sunday afternoon knowing the likelihood is their home will not sell during the open house.
Will one of these calls end up in a successful sale? Time will tell.
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I “get” your default stance on open houses Jonathan but I do think they have a place. Specially for that opening week of a listing.
-Athol
I’ll go as far as to concede real estate is local so results may vary.
Having cheated and read your post, though, I have to ask whether the buyers that you picked up are purchasing the listing you were in or are shopping in general?
If it’s the former, bully … I’m not going to begrudge anyone that. But at the same time, it’s not helping sell the home you were in.
That’s where my issue is … convincing sellers the open house will sell their home when we know it almost certainly won’t.
Shopping in general Jonathan. I do concede that it is very rare that an open house, except for a very first week on the market open house, is the first point of interest for a buyer in making a home purchase. That’s the rush over and see it effect in play. (Just awesome in a hot sellers market.)
I do make it clear that really the direct interest in open houses favor the agent rather than the seller. In fact it’s a hard road to convince many of them of that. I’ve stood there and explained “really, buyers ready to buy have agents, pre-approvals and are booking showings NOT coming to open houses”. Then had the seller say “I don’t care I just want one”.
I do think that open houses act as the first point of contact between many clients and agents, which does develop into an eventual sale… somewhere else.
That of course does not directly benefit the current seller, but I wonder if the buyer that does make the actual offer meet their agent at an open house a couple months back… somewhere else.
We don’t seem to keep stats on that sort of thing though, so I can only claim it as “hunch”. I see it as a kind of “pay it forward” sort of thing.
And before I try to snap up a buyer, they do have to verbally reject interest in the house. I am after all trying to sell the house as a first priority.
You’re doing it the right way, my friend. Kudos to you for doing so.