An open house is an essential event in selling your home. During an open house, the property for sale will be open to allow possible buyers to check every inch of the property personally. Everyone is welcome to view the property and share thoughts with the agent and the owner. However, hosting an open house is not just about inviting potential buyers inside the house. You must host an open house properly with all the important aspects in mind. Consider each of these tips in properly hosting your own open house.

Advertise Your Open House

You can spread the word about your open house online. The internet has been one of the means of marketing that has become very popular. The National Association of Realtors say that 90% of buyers are using the internet to search for a property. You can use any social media platform to put the word out about your open house. Make sure that you include the time, date, and location of the open house. Moreover, highlighting the open house date and time on your property for sale listings will help interested parties to know about the event. Most buyers prefer to attend an open house first before they decide if they will purchase the house. Another way to promote your open house is by flyers. In this age of technology, flyers are still efficient in advertising an event. Give out flyers within your community. Your neighbors might have a family or friends who are looking for a house within your area. Open house sign installed on areas where traffic is heavy. The more signage you install, the more guests will come to your open house. Make sure that your sign will have enough information that will lead people directly to your home.

Prepare the Premises

Preparing the property for the open house is the most obvious thing to do, but how to know if you’re doing it right? It is not enough to declutter your house. Clearing your closets is also a must. Make sure you clean every inch of your house from top to bottom. Clean your windows and blinds, and even all your decors. When cleaning your property, make sure that you spend more time on your kitchen, laundry room, and garage. Clear your garage as much as possible. People tend to store boxes of clutter in the garage. Better get rid of these as it will affect the view of your garage. Additionally, it would be best if you cleared the garage of any vehicles. You can ask your neighbors to help you out by allowing your vehicle to temporarily park your vehicles near their house while the open house is taking place. Ensure that the front of your house is clean, and no vehicles are obstructing the front view of your house. Another thing you remember when preparing your house for the possible buyers is never to use an air freshener. Some people are allergic to air fresheners, and you do not want someone to have an allergy attack during your open house.

You should not only clean and beautify your interior but also pay as much attention to your exterior. Ensure that your house looks clean from the outside. Remember when guests arrive, the first thing they will see is the exterior part and the surroundings of your property. One way to leave a good first impression is to beautify your garden if you have one. Add more plants and flowers with contrasting colors to enhance the visual of your exterior. Mow your grass and trim bushes around your property to make it look neat and clean. If your exterior paint is already worn out, it would be worth repairing your exterior walls before the open house. Never take your exterior for granted; every side of your property should be on its optimal condition.

Prepare Good Food

Every open house must offer refreshments to their visitors. Set your refreshment nicely on your kitchen island countertop if available. Or you can just set the dining table as a temporary refreshment bar for the open house. Baking homemade cookies is the best trick in an open house. Aside from people loving sweet treats, it will give your house that enticing cookie smell. Having the freshly baked cookie smell around your house will help the guest feel more at home. If you are willing to invest in your open house, it is also better to set up a catered meal for your guests. Having well-prepared food will be much appreciated by the guest because it makes them feel important. An open house is used as a marketing strategy to lure buyers inside your house and impress them by pointing out the assets of your property. Unless you want to sell your house to Suffolk County House Buyers LLC directly, you should do your best to organize a unique and fun open house for your potential buyers.

Stage Your Home

Staging your home would increase the chance of selling your home. Rent furnitures and decors that will add beauty to your interior would be worth trying. Most agents staged open houses to make it more attractive to the potential buyers. Staging will also give the potential buyer a projection of the potential interior theme if they purchase the house. Always opt for cozy and minimalist design to achieve a more organized look of your interior.

Takeaway

Investing for an open house will be worth it, as many sales were closed during this event. This is the seller’s chance to market the property and highlight all the best parts of the house. Posting a for sale listing alone is not enough to convince buyers to purchase your house, thus, inviting them to have a personal tour on the property will be your best gesture to secure a deal.

Photo: Grow Landscapes Inc.

There’s an art to selling a home, whether you accept it or not. A prospective buyer will survey your home for a short amount of time, and that opinion will inform whether or not they choose to pursue a sale. This can be an opportunity, or a threat. The choice is in your hands. So, how do you create a huge impact in a small window of time, while also securing the number you want for the property sale? Home staging. It’s no longer just an added benefit or going the extra mile, it’s becoming a standard for home owners who want to maximise the features of their home and yield a greater return. If you’re not sure whether home staging is worth it, here’s how it will increase your property value.

Photo: Lindset Black Interiors

Highlight and lowlight

Every home has a hero feature, and some have more than one. The same can be said of lowlights, but there are ways to minimise those areas and cast focus on the highlight features instead. This is where home staging in Melbourne can help. If your home has high ceilings, you can dress the space with artwork and greenery, as well as oversized lighting fixtures. This will draw the eyes up and around the space, basking in that beautiful high ceiling. On the other hand, if your bedrooms are on the small size you can furnish the room with a smaller bed and minimal furniture. Home staging stylists are trained at taking in the space, and styling it to its best advantage so that buyers can walk away impressed with the attributes you need them to be, and accepting of those lesser features.

Photo: Lindset Black Interiors

That ‘picture yourself here’ factor

Even if a property is ten out of ten, there is a slight deflation that happens when you enter a home that doesn’t have a single piece of furniture or decor design inside. You can always assess the space on its merits, but you are never picturing yourself in the space and imagining what life would be like there.

Home staging is on the complete other side of the spectrum. Buyers will enter the space as if they are coming home, wandering through a stunning and functional living space, and an immaculately styled kitchen. If you’re still unsure whether home staging is worth it, think of the beautiful images you will get as a result of the styling and how they will drive more clicks onto your listing. Allowing buyers to picture their future in the home before them will earmark it in their minds, and answer any questions they may have walked away with if your property was otherwise empty.

Photo: Dina Holland

Competitive edge

Imagine this. You are trying to sell your townhouse or apartment, but there are many like it in the same area or worse — the very same block. How do you make your property more prominent and avoid lowering your property price to get more viewings? Home staging will immediately cast a favourable point of difference on your property, and will propel you to the top of the lot — if you’re even lumped in with those properties at all. Get the price that your home is worth. If there are five other apartments in your building that are for sale, be competitive and claim the price you want and demonstrate the value through home staging.

It’s ultimately impossible to keep emotions out of selling a home. Memory ties, personal opinion and general bias as to what you are selling and what is possible with your property. It’s unavoidable. Fortunately home staging gives you a platform to demonstrate just what your property is made of, through though out styling and staging decisions which will put your best foot forward and secure you the price you aspire to.