Home shoppers who come into one of Lisa Huntington-Kinn’s open houses may not walk off with a signed contract. But chances are they’ll grab a snack, sip some wine or try on a sparkling gold bracelet.
It’s the newest tweak to the age-old home marketing formula — turning an open house into an event.
Open House With Style, a Littleton-based company that sprang up last year, invites a bevy of local small businesses to take part in the home-selling process. Area entrepreneurs get to network and show off their wares. Home sellers enjoy greater exposure for their properties.
And, sometimes, a deal is struck.
“We’re not here to sell the house. We create exposure for the house,” says Huntington-Kinn, owner of Open House With Style.
Huntington-Kinn says the approach gives small-business owners a large chunk of time to network, and home visitors tend to linger longer than with a traditional open house.
The events also show how the home being marketed can entertain guests, and the smells and cordial chatter make the homes seem more inviting.
But the approach isn’t a good fit for all houses. Smaller homes may not have enough space to hold a crush of visitors.
It’s just the latest wrinkle in the evolving open-house model. In recent years, Realtors have tried stringing several open houses together in a similar price range to entice more buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors. In Detroit, some schools have gotten involved with the open-house process to give possible buyers more information about the districts in their new neighborhoods.
Real estate agent Lisa Farley, who reached out to Huntington-Kinn for a March 7 open house for one of her clients in Littleton, says the approach fits right into today’s homebuying patterns.
“With this economy, (buyers) aren’t looking for a Realtor first. They’re driving around, doing Web searches” to find homes and open houses, she says.
Judy Fahrenkrog, a broker with Kentwood City Properties in Denver, says anything that offers a different twist to invite buyers into an open house is beneficial.
Fahrenkrog devised her own spin on the open-house template when she arranged for a showing of local artists’ work during an open house in Castle Pines Village. The neighborhood forced her creative hand.
“They don’t allow real estate signs and have restrictions on open houses,” she says.
The glut of homes on the market means home shoppers can’t hit every open house. But, she says, they might pencil in one offering a gimmick or twist.
Stephanie Singer, spokeswoman for the National Association of Realtors, says her organization is hearing anecdotal reports of Realtors getting more creative with their open houses.
Yet it’s still more likely a house will find a buyer through some other means. Singer says only about 15 percent of buyers said they found their home via an open house.
Event-style open houses are “one way to increase exposure for homes, but it’s not the only way,” she says.
Some companies that participate in Open House With Style events:
• The Diet Center and DaVinci Teeth Whitening
• Wiselife Consulting
• Juice Plus
• Susabell Designs
• Organo Gold Coffee
• Rachel Kemble Photography
• Tupperware
• Send Out Cards and Hansen Printing
• Comfort Cleaning
• Mariana’s Kitchen Design
• Strawberries Catering
• Dream Baskets
• Sentry Insurance
• Pampered Chef
• Stress Logic Massage
