Sunday afternoon I put my latest post on Facebook. If you scroll down a little, you’ll see it’s the one about Coldwell Banker giving away iPads to Open House attendees.
Interestingly, of the texts/emails I received about the post and Open Houses, some wanted to know how or why I chose those particular houses (York Dr. and Concord Dr.) to hold open. Hovering around 100 listings, I can understand why someone would wonder.
Quick answer: I hadn’t had an open house at either before today. They’re good listings, at price levels that fit a large buyer pool. They’re close in proximity, which means we could “play them off of each other,” and both benefit from some strategic directional signage.
Real(er) answer: Both sellers of the listings open today enjoy contracts on other homes. What this means is, given I had two Realtors to work with, I leveraged our time/manpower such that four+ homes actually benefited.
Consider, if a $400,000 home has a contingent contract on a $200,000 selling, the $400,000 home can still sell to a “non-contingent” buyer at anytime. Until another offer presents itself, however, both homes are still rooting for the $200,000 home to sell so both of them can move towards closing. After all, that’s why the $400,000 house took the $200,000 contingent contract in the first place. In short, the $400K house is spreading its buyer pool into the $200K price level, which is exponentially larger. To sum up, in real estate, two different size hooks in the water is often better than one big hook.
Why the “+” in the “four+ homes” phrase above? If you take the scenario further, the seller of the $400,000 is buying another home as well. Get it? If we can pop the $200,000 listing, it’s a domino of win/win/wins.
I won’t know if today’s Open House exercise will turn into anything or not. That said, while 1-5 PM is a looong time, I was proud to have 2 listings open for four hours Sunday afternoon.
Mixing time and strategery, at least no one can charge us with lack of effort! As a side surprise, it would be nice if one of our friends or clients won a free iPad today.
Thank you!
FJ
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