Would you like your home SOLD

or just listed with the rest!!

 Serving Salt Lake City and West Valley City.

I have More Marketing and Advertising than most Agents. This gets your Home SOLD.

Q: I am about to put my four-bedroom home on the market for $475,000, with a
180-day listing. The agent says she will hold one open house for the general
public. She says we don’t need any more because open houses don’t sell homes. Is she right?

A: Heck no, though her opinion is certainly shared by many real-estate agents
who would rather do anything else on their weekends than baby-sit a house.

But many agents tell me that open houses are no longer necessary because most
buyers search for homes on the Web. Indeed, the National Association of
Realtors’ Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers says that nine out of 10 buyers
search on the Internet. I don’t agree.

While it’s easy to spend an afternoon blasting through slide show after slide
show of homes for sale, photos alone don’t sell homes. They can’t convey how a
home smells, sounds or feels — and, as anyone who has seen a room shot through a
wide-angle lens knows, they can deceive.

Buyers know this, yet some just don’t want to make a personal appointment with
an agent to visit a home that interests them, just as some folks don’t like
sales clerks hovering in the background when they shop for clothes. Open houses
give these people a chance to browse without too much pressure.

The NAR’s survey shows old-fashioned open houses have remained consistently
useful to consumers, even in the age of YouTube video marketing pitches and
virtual home tours with jazzy musical scores. Since 2001, the number of buyers
who said they found a house they eventually bought through an open house or yard
sign was constant at about 15%. Nor have economic ups and downs made much of an
impact on how people regard them. In 2006, 47% of buyers said they used open
houses as an information source in their home search; in 2008, the number was
48%.

And sure, open houses also attract nosy neighbors, bored Sunday drivers,
decorating addicts and petty thieves. But all except the last are harmless and
may wind up falling in love with your house, or talking it up to someone else
who will.

Let's get together to talk about your home selling plans. Call me on my cell phone (801-201-1985) or send me an e-mail (mikeg@equityutah.com), we'll set-up a time to meet that is easy and convenient for you.

I look forward to working with you!

- Equity Real Estate
801-201-1985
mikeg@equityutah.com