Successful Agents & Open Houses – Working Together?
Interesting. Or is it intriguing? Is there a relationship between open houses and an agent’s sales/listing activity? Logic tells us yes. And, I think – so does our open house ad this week.
The logic is that if you hold open houses, you’re more likely to meet prospective home buyers and to have a seller who believes you’re working harder on their behalf. But everyone knows that logic has no place in real estate (don’t ask me to substantiate that). What about proving it with cold, hard, indisputable facts? No, I don’t have those, but I do have conjecture.
It’s the first of the year. And around the first of the year we add up last year’s numbers. Like who sold the most homes? Who had the most listings? Who had a good year despite the economy and despite claims that you can’t make a buck in real estate these days? Well … here I am looking over that list of top agents when I’m interrupted to proofread our Sunday open house ad. Funny, I’m recognizing a lot of faces!
In a typical open house ad, Carpenter has photo ads and text ads. This week we have about three dozen photo ads. And in those photo ads I see the faces of last year’s top agents. Fully 45% of our open house photo ads this week are being held by sales and listing leaders from 2010. Agents who are listing more homes – and closing more sales – are spending their Sunday afternoon holding open homes for sale. Meeting prospective clients. Working hard for their home sellers.
Now I’m no licensed, experienced real estate agent. If I was, logic would tell me to take every effort to ensure I have a satisfied seller on my hands. Logic says I should increase my sphere of contacts in order to increase my number of sellers and buyers. Now, conjecture tells me to emulate successful agents and hold open houses.
Danged if this puzzle isn’t putting itself together for me.
Posted by: Jim Newell