Thinking of Selling Your Home? Go to Open Houses!

As a realtor, one of the things I do is to host public Open Houses for homes that are currently listed for sale.  I’m often surprised by the low number of people who take advantage of them.  After all, visiting a house or two really doesn’t take much time. Of course, the realtor who’s having the open house is hoping that someone will stop by who has a real interest in buying a house in the near future. However, lots of people stop by and aren’t interested in buying a home right away, and most realtors are glad to meet those types of people as well. Sometimes people are just starting to think about buying or selling, sometimes they want to see what’s available in their price range, and sometimes they’re just nosey. But don’t think that open houses are just for people who want to BUY a home.

If you’re thinking of SELLING your home in 2012, you should be going to open houses too! Why? So you can see the prices and features of similar homes in your area. Why? So you’ll start to get an idea of what your home’s listing price should be. True, a realtor will be glad to do a “Comparative Market Analysis” for you, and suggest a reasonable listing price. However, don’t wait until you’re ready to put your home on the market. Start to see for yourself what the competition might be like when you do list your house for sale.

After all, everyone who’s buying a home wants to get the “best” house at the “best” price, right? If a buyer is looking to buy a house for about $500,000 he/she will look at several homes to see what $500,000 will buy. Although each buyer may have a specific list of “must haves”, they all will be interested in the condition and age of the kitchen and bathrooms, the size of the rooms, etc.  A buyer isn’t going to buy the first house they see for sale. A buyer isn’t going to pay $500,000 for a home that needs a new kitchen and 2 new bathrooms if he/she can get a similar house in the same area that has been recently renovated and updated.

If you, potential home seller, go to one or two open houses every weekend, in 3 or 4 months you’ll have visited one or two dozen homes. At that point, I’ll bet you’ll have a much better picture of the local real estate market than you have right now. Also, seeing how other sellers have made their homes more attractive might give you some great ideas for what you can do to get your home ready to sell.

Hope I’ll see you at the next open house!