Every Sunday,  neighborhoods are flooded with flags and signs announcing open houses.  As a successful REALTOR®, how can you make yours  stand out from the crowd, and make a potential homebuyer not only follow those signs to yours, but make them glad they did? 

Laura Coffey  has 10 great tips on how to make your open house a success.

“1. Place the Open House on Realtor.com

The first thing you want to do when you decide to hold an open house is place an announcement on Realtor.com. If you are a featured agent you can do this in your edit listings section. If you are not a featured agent, shame on you! For only a few hundred dollars a year, it will magnify your business.

2. Door Knock the Neighborhood

Here in Santa Clarita, there are many areas where solicitation is not allowed. However, if you are just inviting people to an open house, no harm, no foul. I have a lender that will make postcards for me, and on the postcard, there is a free drawing that one person who visits my Open House will receive a 4-hour limousine ride which is provided by my lender. It gets traffic into the Open House and impresses possible up-and-coming sellers

3. Preview Property in the Area

Any Realtor knows that nine times out of ten, the customer coming through the Open House is not going to buy that particular house. You need to know and see other properties that are less expensive and more expensive and/or larger than the home you hold open.

4. Proper Sign Placement

The more Open House signs you have, the better. I recommend Open House signs that have your name or your web-site on them. It’s great advertising even if someone doesn’t come to your Open House since your name is on busy street corners for hours. Never cut short of heavy sign placement. If you are new and are holding an Open House for another agent, choose location wisely. Next to freeways and high traffic areas are always best.”

Each Realtor has their own “tricks of the trade” when it comes to holding a successful open house. Armed with your previous experiences with open houses, in addition to the rest of Laura’s 10 great tips, you’re sure to have success at your next open house and the many ones that follow.

Click through to read Laura Coffey’s blog.

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Listing a home during the holidays may require a few adjustments. The holiday decorations will probably have to go and it’s also not a good idea to fill the living room with presents if you have buyers looking at the home. Some sellers may be inclined to lower their listing price after getting light foot traffic, but price may not be what’s keeping sellers away. 

Scott Wurtzbacher blogs about reducing the price of your home during the holidays:

“If your home is currently listed and hasn’t sold, you might be thinking about a price reduction. Especially if your home has been listed for 60-90 days or more without a price change. Should you reduce your price in December? The short answer is that it depends on how urgently you need to find a sale.

If you can afford to hang on for an extra month or two, then you are probably better off to wait until after the first of the year. During the December holiday season, priorities shift and the buyer pool for real estate temporarily decreases. If you’re not getting many showings or offers this month, it doesn’t necessarily mean your home is overpriced. It could just be that your prospective buyer is waiting until after the holidays.”

If you are suffering a hardship and need to sell imediately, then lowering the price of your home may be what increases showings. But, as Wurtzbacher goes on to mention, spring is just around the corner and sellers that can hold on a few more months will be able take advantage of new buyers.

Click through to read Scott Wurtzbacher’s full post.

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I’m in the process of getting a divorce and we need to settle on the house. I’m on the deed as well as the promissory note, however the loan is not in my name. I’m willing to sign off on the house but I also want to be released from all financial responsibilities. What are my options? Would it be to either have my soon-to-be ex refinance or short sale? Are there any other alternatives? -Denise

The best advice I can give you would be to contact a local real estate attorney who wil be able to go over the options you have. I’m not allowed to give legal advice and deciding how to proceed with settling property tied up in a divorce proceeding would be giving legal advice. I would also recommend that you contact the mortgage company or bank that holds your mortgage to find out the pay-off amount and what they would be willing to allow you and your soon-to-be ex-husband to do with respect to taking your name off the note so that your ex-husband has sole legal responsibility to pay off the existing mortgage. The last thing you want to do is take the advice of someone who is not licensed in your state to provide the correct legal information/advice regarding your situation.

Tim McBrayer is a licensed Realtor in the Triangle specializing in North Raleigh, North Carolina Real Estate. He is an Eco Broker and serves on the Green Builders of the Triangle education committee.

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