What do open homes achieve?
Lots of my business revolves around open homes. I prepare paperwork for them, advertise them, put signs up for them, travel to them, stand at them, meet nice people at them, record people’s details, do callbacks, appraise & list visitors’ homes, etc.
Did you notice there is one vital activity missing from that list of weekly activities?
Of my last 16 sales, a grand total of 3 sold to someone who came through the open home as their first point of contact with the property.
Is this unusual? Is your experience the same? What if every listing was ‘viewing by appointment’? Would it make any difference to the sales results?
Great point Steve.
You may be interested to know that back in 1997 I had very similar thoughts. For the next 11 years I had the pleasure of being in real estate without having one single open home. Did my sales drop? No – in fact they increased, because I was forced to qualify my buyer enquiry better, set appointments with them, put them in the car and show them houses that suited their needs. It’s called selling – instead of sitting on your bum and hoping a buyer turns up (order taking).
Ask your vendors – you may find that many of them don’t actually want open homes – they just think they have to have them because everyone else does them.
In my opinion open homes were never designed to sell the property or to benefit the seller – they were designed to benefit the agent so they can meet future sellers.
It is an interesting debate. Hope you get lots of feedback
kind regards
Carl
As the owner would you answer a knock at the door then allow a whole bunch of strangers to wander around your house unattended?
It amazes me that owners accept agents doing exactly that – perhaps they owners actually do deep down not really like the concept. Maybe going back to an appointment only strategy would achieve mass market acceptance from vendors?
The three that sold to the open home vistors would probably have sold to them even if there wasn’t an open home – they would have called you and made an appointment.
Open homes are not actually of any real benefit to the seller. One negative comment overheard by a buyer who was actually, until then, quite interested could make the difference between a sale or no sale.
There is no way you can sell the property, answer objections, suggest changes etc if you are simply standing at the front door taking names and numbers. Also difficult to get genuine feedback for the owners and often false numbers given. Risk of theft of small items that may not be noticed until a later date etc, etc.
I fully agree with Carl – when I started in real estate open homes had not been invented and you were unable to work after 12 noon on Saturday or on Sundays. But surprise, surprise homes still sold.
A few years ago in the early 2000′s we stopped doing open homes and did everything by appointments and got better results for the owners.
The job is so much more enjoyable and better for the owners showing homes by appointment than doing open homes – the buyers actually appreciate the service and the extra information that you are able to provide when time is spent on each property rather than a 5 minute rapid open home visit.
Now we are looking at video walk throughs but also wonder if this is taking away from the sales process. Here is an example http://www.umoview.co.nz:80/player/player.php?id=10398
Great for overseas buyers though. If it filters down to just genuine buyers that then have to make an appointment then perhaps it’s the way to go.
Theft from open homes is a genuine risk as you can see from these items:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ponsonby/news/article.cfm?l_id=358&objectid=10429269
A Ponsonby resident has reported jewellery stolen during an open home, prompting renewed warnings about the security of houses being displayed to the public.
Police say open homes can be targets for criminals and they advise homeowners to be careful about the monitoring and locking of houses.
http://tvnz.co.nz/content/132223/423466/article.html
Bogus buyers helping themselves in a series of thefts from open homes have led to a nationwide alert after the practice was exposed on TV One’s Fair Go programme.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/518685
http://www.fortunemanning.co.nz/site/fortune/files/OPEN HOME THEFT.pdf
Steve – in Wellington open homes are only held on Sunday’s. So what would it take for the Auckland industry to make a bold move and switch to Sunday only or by appointment only?
Great to have your input Ross. I doubt we’d achieve mass acceptance of ‘by appointment only’ but it’s certainly worth a go for Sundays. The recent REINZ submission form used to lobby the REAA re licence fees would be an easy way for agents to quickly indicate their support or otherwise for ‘Sundays only’. Do you have the time, contacts or inclination to investigate whether the REINZ would support a mass survey in order to get some traction with this??
Problem of course is that Reinz couldn’t police a Sunday only policy and some would break ranks even after a decision was made. Some agents would buckle to the pressure of a vendor saying “you won’t get the listing if you don’t do Sat/Sun opens”. Others would tout that they ‘work harder’ and give better service by doing sat/sun although of course this would be pure spin. There must be a way to effect change!!
If you don’t have time to pursue this, I’ll see what I can do…