It is no secret that I am not a fan of traditional open houses. I think I made that abundantly clear in an article a couple of weeks ago titled, Agents that say they don’t sit opens are in my opinion lazy.
So it is with some trepidation that I announce a few Thompson’s Realty agents will be participating in an open house tomorrow.
“WHAT!?! You’re a flipping sell-out!” someone might be thinking.
Not-so-fast Sparky. I’m not talking your traditional open house where the seller vacates the premesis and the agent sits around in the living room, hoping for someone, anyone to knock on the door.
I wouldn’t do that. It’s silly. Opens very rarely sell that specific home. Whether agents want to admit it our not, the primary thing gained from holding open houses is buyer clients, or at least buyer prospects.
What we’ll be doing is a little different. Rather than invade someone’s home for several hours on the weekend, we’ll be invading the lobby of a Compass Bank branch.
Yeah, we’re holding an “Open House” in a bank. With, as one might assume, one of of the banks mortgage officers. The plan is to put two people together, a lender and an agent, that a home buyer or potential home buyer might find useful. We’ll have printouts of a few nearby homes for sale, and a laptop so we can sit with folks and cruise the MLS. There will be brochures, not for a home for sale, but for us. And we’ll shamelessly market our services — without having to couch that fact as some sort of “service” we’re doing for our seller.
Who knows what will happen. Like any open house, there could be no traffic or a lot — one never really knows. But our sellers don’t have to worry about someone casing their home for a future break-in. No one has to lock up the prescription drugs. And no one has to vacate there own home for hours on what promises to be a stellar Phoenix “fall” day.
We’ll sit an open to meet potential clients, help out some folks whether they use us or not, meet a new lender and pick his brain and we’ll have a grand time.
If you’re in the area, stop on by and say hi!
Here are the particulars:
Compass Bank / Thompson’s Realty Open House
When: Saturday September 20. 9:00am – 1:00pm
Where: Compass Bank 1085 E. Baseline Rd.
(southwest corner of Cooper and Baseline)
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Great idea, Jay! I’m always impressed by people who are trying new marketing ideas. This open house sounds intriguing. Good luck!
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Jay - best of luck with your open house, just curious, did you approach the bank with the idea? And looking forward to reading in a future blog how it went.
Tina Fountains last blog post..Cobb County Luxury Real Estate
Open houses, generally, do not benefit the seller. Great idea. Good job getting out of the box.
Aloha,
Keahi
Keahi Pelayos last blog post..VA Loan Limits In Honolulu Real Estate!
First I want to say that I really like your idea here Jay. However, I want to stick up for open houses a bit yet, not entirely. I agree that the traditional open house where one just sits on their duff in one house and waits for someone to show up is almost a waste of time. Now I am a big fan of doing open house tours. I started doing this in when I worked as an agent in Washington state and it worked very well for both the real estate professionals involved and for the home owners. We started out from our office where we cooked up some barbaque and then toured 6-8 homes with in a mile or less of one another. The concept started out very slow at first but began to pick up steam as we did it the same third sunday of every month. Over the last year I worked in Washington it became very popular and we started selling a number of homes right off tour. Now don’t get me wrong it was a lot of work and needed several people to pull off, however, it was very valuable and should be considered.
Jamess last blog post..Why AIG did what they did.
Sounds like a good idea, how did it go?
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That’s an awesome idea - completely out of the box and there’s so much potential. I’m interested in hearing how everything went.
I’m a big fan of experimenting as well Jay, wish you good luck on your new idea and please try to keep us updated.
Traffic to the open house was not good. I didn’t promote it well before the fact, and maybe the bank could have done a better job. We’re going to try again on a different day. The bank gets more “foot traffic” on Friday afternoons, and at the end of the month, so those are possibilities. We’re also thinking about different locations as well.
Not a waste of time at all though as I got to learn about some of the different loan programs this bank offers as as well as meet a bunch of cool bank employees.
That is a wonderful idea! Going straight to the customer. Some people may go to the bank for a mortgage with a home already in mind, but I bet you will capture the attention of many people still looking for a home. Good luck — I’m interested to hear how that goes!
Neat concept!
Maybe you need an offer in addition to better promotion. What is something that serious home buyers or sellers would need that you can provide? Walk-in CMA’s? A free real estate book? A drawing for $X off origination fees? A free class on how to do your own CMA online? Get qualified for free? Something that would interest serious prospects but not cost too much.
I am sorry to hear that your event wasn’t as successful as you had hoped. I still like this idea and especially John Wake’s suggestion above. How can you loose when you combine a high traffic location with information potential clients are in need of? I’d love to hear how the next one goes.
Yes, You are writing about truth. Many people were thinking about that and its very good to find here a good answer.
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Interesting idea. I would love to see a follow-up post after you do this again.
That is an ingenius idea as there are always people going to the banks on Saturdays. I have never heard of this before but it really does seem like a perfect match having a lender and realtor team up since they need each other.
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This is a refreshing idea and I think this can be of good potential in the market. I think you can make it big for sure.
What do you think about doing an “open house” at the retirement center? You know… where all the older people go and play games and cook together? Older folks are often thinking about moving to a smaller “more manageable” place… whether they know it or not.
@Peter Monroe -
I think it’s a fabulous idea! There is a large retirement community in Phoenix that I think is often overlooked by many agents.
So this what an open house is!
I have to admit that these are things that I’m just coming in terms with.
Well in my places these words would all sound new!
That’s too bad that your open house did not go as well as you had hoped. The retirement home open house sounds like a good idea!
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