Luxury Real Estate Open Houses
During one of my sessions at the recent convention in Anaheim, California an agent asked me if open houses work in the high-end and if so, how do they work and how are they different from every day open houses.
Luxury open houses can work and there are important differences in how to do them in the high end.
Invitation Only: One technique is to hold Luxury Open Houses by invitation only. Invite people who are in the area around your listing and other areas from which residents could move up to your listing. High end people tend to want to be around people like themselves. Indeed, you’ll find that when you look at whose actually buying high-end property in your marketplace, it is typically a friend, relative or associate of somebody whose already there. In my market in particular, it’s very rare for somebody to “parachute in” and buy property without any connection to the area. That connection is almost always a people connection.
Luxury Real Estate Brokers: We all work to get EVERY buyer coming to our market to begin their search with us. No matter how good we are though, some buyers are going to go to other agents. Hard to believe, but it’s true. Hold another “by invitation only” open house for luxury brokers in your area. Because we are dealing with the high end, I suggest you follow our practice of inviting agents from a father distance from your market than you might otherwise. For example, while I am on Cape Cod, I typically invite brokers from the Boston area to my Luxury Agent Previews. They don’t always attend, but it helps keep my listing front of mind.
Affiliation marketing: There is a whole section in my book, Selling Luxury Homes about affiliation marketing. You can learn to form alliances with other luxury businesses as your market place. For example, what if a local jeweler in your area had a display of fantastic estate jewelry during your open house. This allows you to invite his or her customer base as well as your own. Do you see how that could leverage the success of your open house? It would be phenomenal. Try it with a high-end car dealer. Imagine Ferraris, Bentleys or Aston Martins parked in the driveway of your listing and the clientele of the dealership coming to your Luxury Open House. Affiliation marketing is a great concept in high-end.
Luxury Real Estate Tour for Charity: Get together with other luxury agents in your office and have three to five luxury real estate properties on tour through a ticketed event that helps a charity. You can even get more focused and have a kitchen, garden or wine cellar tour. You raise money for a local charity, and some people who come through are potential buyers or future sellers for you. Not only that, but the board of the charity is likely to have wealthy people among its membership. It’s a great way to be a little bit different.
One last point to keep in mind is that we’re using the words “open house” amongst ourselves. Please know that I don’t use the words “open house” in any way, shape or form to luxury real estate clients. Ever. When talking to your clients, think about:
- Broker Preview
- Private Preview Event
- Private Showing
Needless to say, we don’t put up red arrow signs either.
The last thing is to be sure that your broker previews are totally planned in advance. There are no last minute or impromptu in luxury real estate. That is the beauty of By Invitation Only, you have to plan in advance.
I hope this information is helpful. Agents continue to ask me about “open house” in the high end. If you have more specific questions drop me an email at jack@jackcotton.com. And don’t forget if you bought Selling Luxury Homes, you get a 20-minute consultation with me. Just fill out the form and send it to me via fax or email.
Until next time make it a great week.
