Antique Sales Bring Traffic To Open House
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In one of the more interesting ways I have seen a real estate agent drive traffic to an open house, Brad Kimmelman of Connecticut stages antique sales at his open houses to drive traffic. The real estate agent gets to sell his antiques, but more importantly drives traffic and buzz to the home and increases the opportunity for it to sell.
Mr. Kimmelman said he has gotten showings recently by staging antiques sales in homes he represents.
“My job is to get exposure for the house,” he said. “I started with my listing on Danbury Road. A lot of people don’t realize that it’s a beautiful property abutting open space. Everyone loves antiques.
“I spoke to the homeowners and said, ‘Do you want to have an estate sale?’ I have an aunt who owns an antiques business in Massachusetts. She liked the idea. We tested it out and did an open house/estate sale.
“Over the weekend we got about 65 cars up the driveway and showed the house to about eight real buyers. All of a sudden, there was an interest in my listing. I have another house where my clients really wanted to move on, so I said, ‘It worked once, let’s do it again.’ We got more showings last weekend — 16. Again, I sold some furniture, too.”
Mr. Kimmelman said he was “working three times as hard” these days to sell a house.
Houses have to look their best to compete, he said. Many sellers are using professional “stagers” to arrange their homes so that they show advantageously.
Mr. Kimmelman said his job now calls for brutal honesty at times. via Acorn Online
As the marketplace gets tighter, the motivated seller and real estate agents are going to find new and unique ways to drive traffic to their homes for sale. Real estate is leaving the sanctified and closed sales environment that it had and is now going to look a good deal more like retail sales.
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Comment by John W. Beal. Director of Marketing, Greenridge Realty on 23 October 2006:
It is good to see agents taking a creative approach to open houses. We have an agent who uses amateur actors when selling older historic homes. These people will dress in the type of wardrobe that was current when the house was built and talk about historical events that took place in that era. Fortunately we have many historic homes in West Michigan and the reception has been very favorable.