It’s no secret that holding an open house can go a long way toward helping to move a listing off the market. Open houses provide agents with a chance to expose a property to numerous potential homebuyers during a set timeframe on one day: Sunday.
However, another opportunity you may want to consider is holding open houses on Saturday. Hosting open houses on Sunday is an industry norm that dates back to when the real estate section of Sunday newspapers propelled most of the home-shopping traffic—but that’s changed. A new school of thought relies on holding open houses on Saturdays and Sundays.
For many, with more competition and the industry’s increased reliance on technology, doubling up on open houses on weekends has become a necessity. With essentially all open houses being advertised online, there’s no reason to stick to just Sundays. Here are a few tips for promoting your next Saturday open house:
- Consider holding a special “early-bird” open house for all the neighbors that’ll likely be home, an hour before the one scheduled.
- Signs are always important, but be sure that it’s clearly specified on all your printed materials that the open house is taking place on Saturday and Sunday!
- Don’t feel like you’re stuck with scheduling the open house for around 12—hosting one later in the afternoon at 4 or 5 p.m. gives people time to finish any errands they may have, but won’t cut into Saturday night plans.
- Also, you may want to avoid hosting a Saturday open house over a big vacation weekend like Labor Day or Columbus Day. The idea is to get as much traffic for your seller as possible.
The biggest advantage of hosting two open houses over the course of a weekend is the increased exposure. One of the downsides, historically, to Sunday open houses is that they often coincide with religious and family obligations. Holding an additional open house on Saturday helps you sidestep this issue and provides another option for potential buyers to view your listing.
Besides eating away at your me time, there really aren’t any cons to hosting an additional open house on Saturdays; however, it’s important to keep in mind that this open house is not a substitute—Sunday remains the industry standard for open houses.
Remember, having an edge on the competition is more important than ever in today’s real estate market and an additional open house can help provide you with that edge. Are you already hosting Saturday open houses? Let us know how it’s working for you in the comments below.
J
ameson Doris is RISMedia’s blog and social media editor. Email him your real estate blog ideas at jdoris@rismedia.com. For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.
