I did something that everyone else thought might not work. I held an open house on a school night, a Wednesday night to be exact. Mind you, this was not a broker's open, but a good old fashioned open house, open to the public.
And guess what? It was "poppin" as the kids say nowadays. Was it a risk? Sure. But it really set the tone for how the rest of the weekend went for this listing. In the middle of June, people need every opportunity they can get to come see a home, and this allowed just that. We have not had many people showing up to Saturday or Sunday open houses, and let's be honest, I think everyone has a lot of other things going on that prevent them from showing up on the weekends. Kids have baseball and soccer this time of year. Vacations are starting to line up while school is getting out. People have a lot going on!
So we figured, why not try this out on a Wednesday night, when everyone is still in town, and has no extra-curricular activities going on. And...we did it!
How did we plan for this? I made it so that the open house was the very first chance people would get to see this home. We knew that based on the area it was located in, we would get a lot of foot traffic. But with rates in the low 7's, we did not know what the turnout would be. Showings started on Thursday, so that Wednesday night we planned for this to be somewhat of an "Opening Night".
All week we got ready for this, and it ended up being a huge success! My good friend Elise helped me set up, and we had an open wine bar with varieties of red and white wines, water, and goat cheese bruschetta garnished with strawberries and basil leaves. It was a hit.
Close to 30 people showed up and there was not a moment where there were not cars in the driveway or people in the house. Considering that most agents we have spoken with lately are getting three or four visitors on Saturdays and Sunday, we were ecstatic with how many people came by.
We even received an offer from someone that only came to the open house, and did not feel the need to schedule an appointment since they were able to come by at the very beginning, before anyone else was able to view the home.
Plenty of real estate agents came also, acknowledging that it was different to hold an open house in the middle of the week. Their feedback was that this idea worked perfectly.
By the end of the night all of the bruschetta was eaten and had raving reviews (first time I have ever made something and people said good things about it!), and almost no one drank any of the wine. The wine did however provide a great backdrop aesthetic so we will continue to have that as part of our "Wednesday Night Package" if you will.
So this all begs the question "would we do this again?" Absolutely. If the house is located in an area that will bring in amazing foot traffic, we definitely will. Brownie points for homes listed in parts of town where you can simply walk from door to door.
This was an amazing success, and I cannot wait for the opportunity to host another weekday open house sometime soon! You never know, it could be for your house!
