Every Open House in Highlands is its Own Unique Special Event

access_timeDecember 18, 2015personDorothy Swearingen

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If you are planning for your own open house in Highlands, you won’t have much trouble finding good advice. Here’s a quick list of what you’ll find:

⦁ Don’t leave your pet behind
⦁ Don’t forget the yard
⦁ If you’re not confident in your house cleaning ability, trust that instinct (hire a pro)!
⦁ It’s the kitchen, stupid (really: don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink)
⦁ Clear out the medicine cabinet
⦁ Fresh bath towels
These are all sound pieces of advice (although the medicine cabinet one should be more comprehensive: any valuable items should also be packed away). It’s why you’ll find some variation of those pointers on just about everyone’s ‘Top Ten Tips for Holding an Open House.’

There are also some open house tips that may not apply to every Highlands open house, but which deserve to be in the running anyway. One good idea syncs with the last bullet point: white-out the bathroom. Instead of just seeing that the towels are fresh, use fluffy white ones that you only bring out for your open house or other showing. White and fluffy = fresh and bright to most people. If your Highlands home has a shower curtain, consider whether replacing it with a white one might be worth the effort as well.

Another tip is to turn on every lamp, flip every switch, check every faucet, flush every toilet. Picture a house visit that’s going really well—then is interrupted when a switch doesn’t work or a faucet leak can’t be stopped. Every agent knows what happens: they flip the switch back and forth three or four times (or use both hands trying to turn the faucet)—and the conversation is immediately derailed while they fiddle with the single tiny mishap. Those kinds of events plant doubt in anyone’s mind: it’s unreasonable, but human nature. As a side corollary, don’t run your facility check five minutes before the open house begins. A failed overhead light means hunting down a ladder, finding a replacement bulb, etc.; a faucet leak or running toilet, much longer to fix.

An extra tip is to give the floors special attention. If you have taken good care of beautiful floors by protecting them with throw and area rugs, unless they are themselves showpieces, you’ll probably do well to roll them up temporarily. Wide areas of open hardwood flooring can be a real selling point.

Every Highlands open house and showing appointment is its own special event—one that that calls for some preparations that are unique to your property. I can help with this: being able to call upon experienced ‘eyes on the target’ is one of the benefits my clients are able to rely on. Call me!

Chance Highlands Open House Visits can Spark Interest

access_timeNovember 3, 2015personDorothy Swearingen

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More than one Highlands home sale has resulted from a couple’s chance encounter with a Highlands open house. It still happens that they just drop in on the spur of the moment.

“Oh look! They’re having an open house down the street!” turns into curiosity, then interest, excitement—and ultimately, a life-altering change in where they call home.

Today that still happens, but a good deal less frequently than in the past. Part of the reason is the demotion of the open house in the pecking order of Highlands real estate strategies. At this point, a Highlands open house is simply never the central element in a home’s marketing blitz. The web has seen to that.

Let’s face it: if you can visit any listed home via its online virtual tour, the whole idea is that it requires a fraction of the time and effort an in-person visit takes. A home’s virtual tour is where you’ll head first. If you are aware of a Highlands open house scheduled for the weekend, chances are you may also check it out online first. If you like what you see there, you might even be tempted to call your agent or email the selling agent to schedule a private showing. Getting there ahead of the masses can give you an edge if the property draws a crowd.

If the online media (including the rapidly-expanding mobile universe) weren’t so ubiquitous, it’s a cinch we’d be seeing a whole lot more ‘Open House’ signs just driving around Highlands. But it’s not a completely extinct phenomenon.

For the house hunter who is just initiating the effort—anyone who suspects that a less virtual, more three-dimensional excursion is the best way to get a feel for what’s out there—look for notices in the newspaper classifieds, and even check the old-fashioned places—like grocery store bulletin boards. And Sunday is still the day you’ll find the most “Open House” signs in Highlands front yards—as well as their cooperative neighbors’ corner lot lawns.

Open houses can offer a leisurely weekend way to wade into this fall’s residential offerings, but for those who have advanced to a stage where a more concentrated and efficient effort is called for, there’s no substitute for the assistance of an experienced town real estate agent. And there is also no need for such a substitute—I’m right here, ready for your call!

Sapphire Debate over Open Houses Won’t be Solved Anytime Soon

access_timeSeptember 12, 2015personDorothy Swearingen

9-16-openhouse It looks as if the debate about the effectiveness of Sapphire open houses as selling tools isn’t going to be settled any time soon. Part of the reason is the difficulty of getting accurate feedback about prospective buyers’ actual behavior as opposed to their intentions. Pollsters do their best, but you have to question the answers they come up with.

A good example was a couple of surveys that tried to pin down how future buyers intended to find their next home. The major online web giant Trulia found that more than 90% of folks who were in the market said they planned to attend open houses as part of their home search! And 62% of U.S. home buyers “reported using/planning to use online sites to find open houses.” If true, that should definitely end the debate. If nearly two out of three buyers are heading to the web to find open houses, when you add in the number who would undoubtedly see street signs or other notices, what Sapphire home seller would choose to ignore what amounts to the majority of potential buyers?

The problem is that a similar study done for the National Association of Realtors^® came up with very different results. The NAR found that 44% of buyers used open houses as an ‘information source’—less than half the number Trulia reported. Which survey is more accurate? There’s no telling. But there’s not much question that open houses can benefit prospective buyers. Although the Sapphire internet listings provide an efficient way to survey and compare descriptions of what’s currently out there, being able to casually pop in and out of several open houses on a Sunday afternoon is a convenient way to get a more in-depth feel for what’s available in various neighborhoods.

The downside for sellers is the usual: the inconvenience involved in getting the property in top condition, making sure that pilferable objects are securely out of reach, and having to vacate the premises for the duration. On the other hand, opening the property to prospects who might not yet be as committed to buying as those who seek showings through their real estate agents is a way to widen the field of possible buyers—especially true for some Sapphire properties which don’t photograph as well as they show in the flesh.

And it’s definitely a marketing plus—a foolproof way to bring wide attention to the fact that yes, the house is seriously up for sale! When the subject comes up, neighbors and passers-by are more apt to make a mental note of the house over on the next street that I remember is for sale. More than one home has been sold because a friend of a neighbor has an aunt who’s been looking for a place…

An open house can be one useful marketing tactic—but like all others, whether or not to use it is the client’s choice. If you are contemplating marketing your own Sapphire home, or are soon to be in the market to buy, don’t hesitate to give me a call!