5 Ways to Getting Your Home Ready for an Open House

Getting your home ready for an open house is a large part of getting one step closer to successfully closing the sale on your home. An open house is an opportunity for potential buyers to see and experience your property in real time and in person, a sort of test-run for what their experience would be like if they were living there, to some degree, but also to see if your property checks of all the boxes on the list of requirements for their home or have any of their questions answers.

Creating the space for all of this to happen is a lot of what makes an open house a step rather than a dead end in the process of selling your home. Below are 5 ways to getting your home ready for an open house and making sure potential buyers have this critical opportunity and experience that is required for selling your home.

Make space – literally

Creating the space metaphorically, as in, making sure the context of the open house as a whole is conducive to a positive experience for the potential buyer touring your home, is very important as mentioned above, but to do this, you also need to make space – literally.

Take as much of your own personal belongings out of the house as possible. Make sure furniture and items that are left are not in the way or hindering anyone from walking around freely from room to room.

Removing personal belongings is what preps your home for the fact that people with all different needs and tastes will be arriving to see your home and shows an obvious consciousness that goes a long way in making a good first impression on potential buyers. In addition, you have the opportunity to remove everything and re-populate the furnishing of your home if you aren’t even living in your home while you are showing it. In this case, this could be an opportunity to “up” the objectivity factor even more.

In short, the less your home looks and feels like your home to potential buyers who are touring it and seeing it for the first time the better off your home-selling situation will be.

Clean up

This one is fairly obvious but worth mentioning. Keeping everything clean and making sure your home feels as less “lived in” as possible will help make potential buyers more comfortable during touring your home, which in turn will make them more interested and more inclined to ask questions (which is a good thing). Cleaning up is not just about aesthetics and creating a general comfortable environment in this case, although that is of course a large part, too.

Create a sign or two

There’s something to be said about the old school sign on the front lawn or at the end of the street. Don’t overlook this opportunity. Create a simple, easy-to-read sign about your open house and put it in both of these locations the week before the open house date.

Make sure if you are using any programs that help you generate marketing materials or while you are crafting the sign yourself that you are properly notating the signs and being as specific as possible. For instance, if your home is one of the homes for sale in Orlando make sure the sign explicitly states that (even though it’s local). Anybody passing through will be able to reference the sign to their friend they may be visiting on the street, for instance, and being as clear as possible will help facilitate effective word of mouth. The affordable and seller-friendly website beycome is a good one to look into help you create marketing materials that are accurate and effective.

Provide a sign in book

Putting a sign-in book at your front door is the perfect way to make sure you can both keep track of who attended the open house but also follow up with everybody. The open house generates your “leads” for the sale of your home. Following-up is critical. You won’t be able to follow-up with anyone without their contact information.

Consider treats and refreshments

This is optional, but goes a long way! Putting treats or refreshments out in the kitchen or candy bowls by the door (maybe also by the sign-in sheet) makes potential buyers feel like they’ve really found a nice experience during your open house, and they will associate that positive experience with your home.

Getting your home ready for an open house is largely about making sure you are considering the experiences of the potential buyers. While they are both guests in your home and also coming through as potential owners of your home, at the end of the day preparing for an open house necessitates creating a positive experience for everyone involved. With these 5 tips you can easily create that experience without breaking the bank and get yourself one step closer to closing with the perfect buyer.