From attracting potential homebuyers to improving your listings’ curb appeal, these five open-house ideas will give you the edge you need to sell yours fast.
For agents, the spring market is synonymous with new. Among new listings, new leads, and new prospects, it can often feel like you don’t have enough time to devote to ordinary tasks, such as open houses. But the spring months provide the perfect opportunity to breathe new life into your open house strategy.
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Below are a few ways to leverage the new season and hit the ground running with your open houses.
1. Run a Facebook ad campaign
When advertising an open house, Facebook ads should be a key component of your marketing strategy. Why? First, these ads are dirt cheap. Get a prospect from a Facebook ad that buys a home (whether it’s the one currently showing or one you send to them during your follow-up or nurturing campaigns) and you’ll have made your money back hundreds of times over.
Second, people are more inclined to spend time viewing and interacting with a post that includes imagery, and an open house provides an opportunity to capture and use an abundance of eye-catching images for your ads.
Most importantly, Facebook has special categories for real estate that allow you to target prospects who are likely interested in buying a home while remaining compliant with the Fair Housing Act.
2. Post a preview video
Descriptive listings are fine, but a preview video of a home will appeal to your audience’s visual sense, giving them a detailed familiarity of a home like words on a page never could. For this reason, 3D virtual tours are all the rage. An internet search will provide you with companies and apps you can use to create immersive experiences. You could also create a more traditional 2D video by creating a photo montage and setting it to music. Canva will let you do this easily. Post your videos to your website, social media accounts, and YouTube, and add the appropriate local hashtags.
3. Bring the weather inside
Between the abundance of sunshine and warmer temperatures, spring weather is glorious. Parlay some of the brilliance of the season into your open house by bringing the spring weather inside. A seasonal floral arrangement will add a pop of color to the interior and offer the slightest wisp of perfume. Consider ditching the tired open-house snack ideas, like chocolate chip cookies, and provide a bowl of fresh fruit. Newly ripened strawberries, maybe served with some champagne, will be refreshing and add a pop of color. You might also offer prospects a complimentary copy of your personally branded magazine with a bright spring cover and your contact info on the front cover to take home. (They’ll keep it way longer than a business card.) Better yet, bake one of the recipes from your magazine, and let prospects know they can find the recipe in the magazine!
4. Freshen up the listing
This last open house idea acknowledges that the winter months are hard on a home’s exterior and interior. Before your open house, you can either coach your clients, hire a professional stager, or spruce up a listing yourself. A home’s curb appeal can be easily enhanced by adding a colorful wreath and displaying spring flowers either in pots or a soil bed. A pressure washer is a relatively cheap and quick solution that can be used to bring the exterior back to life. In addition, ensure that the interior is void of all clutter, that all the lights are on, and that the curtains are pulled back to let in as much natural light as possible. And consider having any carpeting professionally cleaned. Check out these additional home staging tips as well as the mistakes to avoid.
This spring, put these tactics to good use, and watch as your open houses pick up momentum well into the summer months.
