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Hosting an open house is an essential part of helping you match up with the right buyer for the right price. But getting the attention of potential buyers is more difficult than ever. Here are 6 innovative open house ideas for your San Francisco property.
LIVESTREAM YOUR OPEN HOUSE
Why not bring the open house directly to the people? Especially with how Covid has accelerated remote work, so why not remote viewings? Livestreaming has enabled more potential buyers to view multiple houses in different locations. For example, if I wanted to live in a big city like San Francisco but not sure, which location the potential buyer can view multiple live stream open houses at the same time.
To livestream it is best to host a Facebook or YouTube live during your open house. This not only gives prospective buyers who can’t make it the opportunity to see the house, but they also can ask questions in real-time to be answered by your real estate agent. It is not just a video but an interactive experience to showcase the details of the home.
There is an additional benefit livestreaming the open house even for the people who attended in person. The livestream can give buyers access to parts of your home they may not have seen or giving them the answers to their questions they didn’t ask. Just make sure there’s someone tech-savvy enough to help post the replay video like me!
VIRTUALLY STAGE YOUR HOME
Have you ever used those apps that allow you to see how different furniture, paint colors, and decor will look in a room? Put that technology to work for you when selling your home!
Visualizing how a room will look like a nursery, office, gym, or craft room can be difficult with all the staged furniture. One of the newest open house ideas is to virtually stage that flex room with furniture and décor that fits their vision of the space. This allows the potential buyer to imagine themselves living in the space.
This virtual staging customization lets each person imagine themselves living in the house. Each household will use the space a little bit differently. That is why virtually staging certain rooms as flex space helps the potential buyer to pull the trigger to buy the house. Plus, people’s needs change over time and the space would need to follow suit.
ADVERTISE TO THE NEIGHBORS
Even if your neighbors aren’t actively looking, they can be some of your best open house attendees. Imagine the kitchen was recently remodeled with a Quartz countertop with a beautiful waterfall on the side. Your neighbors will talk about how beautiful it is and potentially do it for themselves. This creates more conversations about your house to their friends and family, which makes for more advertising.
To let your neighbors know, one of the best ways is to distribute door hangers or fliers to people in your neighborhood. Having something physical makes more of an impact than seeing something online. There is a chance your neighbor might even want to buy your house! Why? your neighbor might love the neighborhood and knows what a headache the San Francisco remodeling process is. There is data that show it takes 627 days to get the permit to build a home in San Francisco.
SKIP THE ALCOHOL
While skipping alcohol may seem like one of the least popular open house ideas, it does have its purpose. First, serving booze can attract people who just want the free drinks and aren’t at all interested in looking at your home. Second, providing alcohol to people you don’t know opens a whole host of liability issues.
Instead of serving alcohol, try fresh-baked cookies. Fresh baked cookies are ideal because the cookies will leave their aroma in the air. This aroma would permeate throughout the house and remind them of sweeter times. If cookies aren’t feasible then maybe just small individual snacks like kit-kats or chips.
Another idea would be water bottles with labels with at least your agent’s information on it. Even better the water bottle would have the house’s address because this can serve as easy takeaways. They would leave the water bottle in the car and every time they take a sip it would be reminded of the house.
HOLD A RAFFLE
Everyone loves a good prize and giving one away at your open house does double-duty.
Raffles create a sense of excitement and makes the person visiting remember the open house more. Serious buyers go and see multiple houses over a period a time so why not make a great first impression by offering a tangible prize?
Advertising the raffle with a tangible gift like an Amazon Echo, or Google Nest, on social media beforehand will attract more potential buyers. This gets more eyes on your house and starts conversations to help sell your house quickly.
And, as you collect entries for the raffle, you get attendees’ contact information. This allows your agent to maintain contact with them for follow-up questions or additional showings. You might ask what about everyone else? That is where the bottled water, cookies, and snacks come in.
GIVE PRACTICAL TAKEAWAYS
Gone are the days of giving out a business card and expecting calls back. To breakthrough, you must give people something useful and interesting.
Customize the takeaway according to the season. If you’re showing in the winter, then earmuffs or tissues. If you’re showing in the summer, then portable fans and mister. In all seasons the takeaways could be branded cases of breath mints, phone holders, and charging cables. These items are all more likely to be kept than business cards, which keeps contact information in front of potential buyers.
Get More Open House Ideas in San Francisco
If you want to use these – or any other – open house ideas to market your home in San Francisco, contact me today at 415-830-1423!
