We had our first open house today and it went very well. We really didn't expect many people to come through but we had 4 couples and 1 single guy (an architect). We also had a couple of others who stopped out front and picked up one of the flyers from the flyer box we got at Home Depot.
We were able to get a very good For Sale By Owner sign, the flyer box and the Open House signs from Home Depot for a reasonable price. The husband took the boys with him to print some color flyers to go in the box. Today we just used some black and white flyers with no pics, since we just got the box last night. The color ones will have nice pics of the outside and inside of the house, so that will be nice.
On Monday, we plan to sign up with an organization that will list our home on MLS. We can also order one of the lock box things that go on the door, in the event that a buyer's agent wants to show our home. We will pay a buyer's agent a certain percentage and the husband is thinking we might want to pay them a little more than they would normally get at first, to see if that helps. Since we won't have to pay a seller's agent, we can give the buyer's agent a bit more and still come out ahead.
So we had more people come through today than we really expected, which was great. It is very hard to tell who might be interested but it is definitely a numbers game so the more the merrier. We are having another open house tomorrow from 1-5 and we will likely continue to do this every weekend that makes sense (not holiday weekends). If we get this many people come through each weekend, we should sell it in a reasonable amount of time.
The boys did great, although I found it a bit stressful, trying to keep them busy while also talking with the people who came though. I may take them somewhere to play tomorrow. It is hard for them because they don't get to take a nap and they can't be loud and run around and stuff like that. They did well today because they watched two movies (started becoming bored about half way through the second one) and then they played outside for a little while and then I took them upstairs for a little while and let them play up there. It was still hard though because they could not make messes. They had to pick up their toys after playing with them, before getting out something else (hey, this might be a good thing!). They are not used to doing that and I know they got tired of hearing me tell them to pick up that and put this away, etc.
I think we had a good first day and we both felt good about the method we are using to sell our house. That is a good thing. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. We appreciate it. Hope you had a good Saturday.
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