Philadelphia Open House Tips

Philadelphia Open House Tips

Open houses are extremely popular in the Philadelphia Real Estate community. The reason is that Philadelphia, and Center City especially, is small and walk-able, so open houses will generate a great deal of foot traffic. Every Sunday morning, almost religiously, the open house signs go up with arrows, and sometimes balloons, directing would be home buyers to the open houses all over town. Several prominent and tenured real estate agents in Philadelphia claim to “have built their entire business” on open houses. These agents are proponents of open houses because they see them as a major source of exposure for a listing and because they allow potential buyers and neighbors easy access to the home. Over the years I’ve attended open houses as a listing agent, a buyer’s agent and a buyer; here are some open house tips I’ve picked up along the way.

Philadelphia Open House Tips

If you are going to host an open house at your Philadelphia listing here are a few words of advice:

1. Advertise the open house everywhere. This includes Facebook, Craiglist, Newspapers, blogs and websites. Open houses listed on the Philadelphia MLS will syndicate out to Trulia, Zilliow and most other large real estate search engines. This is the best type of advertising for an open house.
2. Use at least two open house signs. One on each corner with arrows pointing towards the property. Make the property easy to find.
3. Make sure the property is in pristine condition! That means it is clean, smells great, looks great and has lots of light.
4. Provide color promotional flyers with lots of pictures of the property and monthly payment estimates from a Philadelphia mortgage broker. Also provide the seller’s disclosure, upgrade lists and any other documents with relevant information about the home.
5. Place a sign in sheet and require visitors to provide name, email and phone numbers.
6. Offering food, snacks or drinks is optional but not really a common practice.
7. If possible, try to schedule the open house when you will not be competing with other prominent Sunday events like religious ceremonies, parades, athletic events or anything else that will hurt traffic.

About The Author: Understanding Philadelphia Open House Tips can seem daunting but are really pretty simple if you read and follow this advice. Philadelphia Real Estate expert Frank L. DeFazio has extensive background in all types of Center City Real Estate transactions: residential, commercial, leasing, sales, property management, investing, and real estate development. Frank L. DeFazio is the founder of the Center City Team in Philadelphia and works for Prudential Fox & Roach, Realtors in Center City, Philadelphia.