When Should You Schedule an Open House for Your Property?

If you’re planning to hold an open house, timing is paramount. You need to ensure that you can gain enough traction for people to check your property.  This helps ensure that the time and effort you put in preparing the house for homebuyers can land you a successful deal.

There are a variety of methods that you can use in scheduling open houses, including using tools like showingsuite. To get the best results, however, there are a couple of points on timing that you need to keep in mind. From posting your new listings to actually scheduling your open house, here are some tips for you to ensure a successful event.

Posting New Listings Online

Traditional marketing methods for real estate include putting ads in newspapers and setting up yard signs. While these strategies are still useful, more potential homebuyers today are found on the internet. According to the 2020 report of the National Association of Realtors, around 52 percent of buyers found their house online while 29 percent found theirs through a real estate agent’s network. Clearly, it’s crucial to go on the web and post new listings for possible customers to discover.

However, the online real estate market is tough. One of the ways you can have an edge over the competition is by properly choosing the day and time that you list new houses online. A home gets five times more views on the day it’s listed compared to subsequent days, so it’s crucial to choose carefully.

According to Redfin, an established real estate brokerage, Thursday listings sell faster and at higher prices compared to posting on other days. It is the most popular day to post new listings for real estate agents. The theory behind this observation is that people generally start planning their weekends on a Thursday and will be searching for new listings to check. With that said, you can still post on Wednesdays and Fridays if you think it works better for you.

On the other hand, Redfin found that Sunday is the worst day to post a new listing. By rule of thumb, the best day to hold an open house is the weekend after a new listing is posted. If you post a listing on a Sunday, you’ll have to wait another week before an open house, which may decrease the interest that people have in your property.

Scheduling Open Houses

With a better idea of when to post your new listings on the web, you have a baseline on when to schedule an open house. After posting a new house on sale on a weekday, experts recommend that you hold an open house that very weekend. In this way, people who are already interested in your property can check it out immediately.

According to Google Trends, searches for open houses spike during Sunday mornings, particularly from 8 to 11 a.m. Posting your open house announcement a few days beforehand can help attract people to the property. Make sure to add all the necessary information, such as the time, the specific location, and your contact details to make it easier for them to find the house.

To help you have a more concrete idea of when to schedule your open house, here are some tips to abide by:

• Limit the duration of the open house to—more or less—two hours. Not only does this help you manage your resources better, but it also gathers more people together at the same time, creating a sense of high demand.
• Avoid holding open houses during the holidays. Holidays are busy times where people are buying food, preparing gifts, and rushing after holiday sales. Holding an open house during such a hectic period isn’t really advisable.
• Check the local events in the neighborhood. Weekend mornings are usually allotted to children’s games or church activities, so open houses are often held in the afternoon. Take advantage of any gatherings like block parties or other open houses to increase the number of people that may drop by your property.
• Always consider the weather. While you can’t predict what the weather would be like, it’s optimal to schedule an open house in fair weather and natural light. Thus, make sure to check the weather reports and only cancel when necessary. If the weather is too hot or too cold, make sure the air conditioning units in the home are working and set to a welcoming temperature.

When to NOT Schedule an Open House

While open houses are useful in attracting a wide number of people for a home, it’s not always necessary. Holding an open house is a lot of work, and it won’t necessarily lead to the results that you want. Many real estate agents agree that it’s a gamble, where there’s always the chance of getting a great deal.

To save on time, money, and other resources, here are some situations where you don’t need to hold an open house:

• If the property is not fit for showing (e.g. property needs renovations)
• If the property doesn’t have any furniture (Some buyers prefer to see furnished homes, so they can easily imagine what it might look inside once they move in.)
• If the property is in a great location with correct prices during prime season (These houses sell themselves.)

With today’s technology, sellers and real estate agents have a wide array of tools they can use to reach out to potential clients and manage their schedules. Take advantage of these resources to ensure a successful open house, get more deals, and rise in the competitive real estate landscape.