Mike Wochner

Hi Karen: My response would be that real estate is local and different areas of the country are going to demand different time frames. For instance, if you live in a resort town like I do (see New York Times article attached), most of our visitors come up on the weekends so I might start later on Saturday (from 2-6pm), and start earlier on a Sunday (from 10am-2pm). We know our visitors have to head back home and most of them leave town by 3 in the afternoon on Sunday. This could be entirely different from Lima, Ohio, so you have to do what works best for you by tracking past results.
If you have a home close to the local university, you might get more traffic before and after a sporting event, find out when local festivals and fairs might be happening and if your open house is close to a large manufacturer or hospital it might be good to post your open house on their message board?
As mentioned in other posts make sure you promote your open house to other agents, neighbors and potential buyers through various forms of communication (print ad flyers/postcards to neighbors, optimum sign locations directing traffic to your home, emails, and ads in local newspapers). I think is important to note that a lot of times homes are bought by people who already live or work nearby so your open house should targeted to the immediate neighborhood and my advice would be to structure those times based on the activity in that neighborhood.
Good Luck! - Thu Apr 24 2008, 17:17