How best to show a listing: private invitation or agent-hosted open house?
As the old saying goes – even if not so palatable to some – there are multiple ways to skin an animal; in this context meaning, there at least two literal ways to show your listing to potential buyers: send out invitations and host private parties or assign the important task to your agent, hoping they represent your property in the best possible light.
Ultimately, which method offers the best probability of enticing buyers to, as they say in the business, “sign on the dotted line?”
Are you someone who owns a premium property and are looking for seeming exclusivity to land preferred buyers or are you of the impression a more traditional open house with its stream of visitors and a little subtle “agent pressure” may be the better route? Multiple people coming and going, filling the property with potential energy and excitement just might do the trick. If not, private invitations for a select few may give you the edge, allowing you to custom tailor a unique presentation.
The following provides a brief discussion of the two most common alternatives to showing a property, complete with theoretical advantages and disadvantages of each.
Open house
Public open houses offer you the ability to build excitement via your agent. The agent can screen visitors for potential “fit” and get a fairly accurate sense of sincerity regarding the hoped-for offer. Agents should be able to answer questions, especially those only an industry professional would have the answers to. Agents are able to greet potential buyers and save you the requirement of being home when visitors are moving about your house. In fact, many sellers prefer not to be home to avoid inane questions and/or potential criticism from suitors asking why something or other is the way it is. Agents are often better equipped to separate constructive criticisms from other expressed comments, making mental notes of legitimate areas of concern and/or repairs or improvements that may need to be made. In the long run, agents are also more adept at keeping potential buyers rational with demands for small fix-its. An open house may also help establish the sense of a buyer’s frenzy, creating the illusion of the necessity for an offer quickly due to high demand for the listing.
Private invitation
If you feel more comfortable knowing exactly who you are dealing with when potential buyers stop by, then perhaps small parties at the behest of private invitations are the better route. Specifically, if you want to know whether you are dealing with “career open house lookie loos,” nosey next-door neighbors or serious buyers, requiring advance notice and acceptance of an invitation is a much more desirable method to show the property. Another obvious advantage of holding an intimate open house is the direct ability to restrict access to off-limit rooms and/ or areas. Though you must realize, buyers will be suspicious if they feel you may be trying to hide something regardless of your sincere explanation. However, you ultimately have the ability to offer a “soft” open house for choice colleagues, friends and neighbors, seeking out opinions of the general state and desirability of your property. Holding your own, controlled open house also importantly offers the luxury of disseminating exactly what personal and unprinted information you care to release about the house. There may well be details of the property that may aid in enticing buyers that an agent may not know. In the end, you maintain control of what you want to share and/or relay to “pre-selected” buyers in a vastly more intimate, scheduled setting with few unwanted distractions.