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Cleaning for Home Open - Aspects that You Should Be Aware Of

Updated on February 8, 2017
Home Open Day is also known as Open Day for Inspection
Home Open Day is also known as Open Day for Inspection

Do you intend to sell your house sometime in the near future? If yes, then it is important to be aware of the aspects involved while cleaning for home open day.

Irrespective of whether you wish to sell your house directly or through a real estate agent, organising a home open day is a must how much ever arduous and inconvenient it might seem. After all, surveys have shown that probability of a house being sold off successfully is relatively much higher subsequent to a home open day than otherwise. This could be the reason as to why property dealers and real estate agents insist on having a home open. And they are also pedantic about the manner in which such days are organised and conducted.

Advertising for Home Open Day –

Following are the ways in which you can advertise for home open day –

  • Placing signs at strategic locations to ensure maximum visibility
  • Including contact details along with an arrow pointing towards the house on the sign
  • Printing attractive and informative brochures
  • Easy availability of registration forms to visitors who come to check out the house
  • Ensuring that all documents are in order and within reach

What Is Home Open Day?

Home open day is the day when you allow prospective buyers to scrutinise your house. On that day, you would do well to be prepared for the fact that there would a large number of visitors.

Because properties that boast of higher number of visitors are likely to be sold quicker than those which have fewer visitors, you must ensure that the open day of your home is widely publicized. By doing so you will have informed as many people as possible. In addition to placing advertisements in newspapers and magazines, you can use street signs, Internet and word-of-mouth campaigns to reach out to prospective buyers.

If you are under the impression that buyers solely going through a real estate agent, then it is time to rest assured that it is nothing more than a myth. Over the last decade or so, there has been a distinct trend wherein people embark on a search for an attractive property all by themselves, relying on channels like Internet, word-of-mouth recommendations and local directories.

So all you need to do is to advertise extensively and utilise the right channels to let everyone know about your home open day. Once your ad is intercepted by prospective buyers, it is just a matter of time before people flock to view your property.

Using Informative and Attractive Signs Are a Must While Advertising for Home Open Day
Using Informative and Attractive Signs Are a Must While Advertising for Home Open Day

How to Clean For Home Open Day

Being a home owner, it is imperative for you to know how to clean for home open since this factor alone is seminal enough to influence the outcome. Rather than taking a random approach, what you must do is chalk out a plan listing all the vital steps and treat it as a blueprint for the entire exercise. Cleaning for home open is more effective if it is carried out in phases. So the onus is on you to divide the work into multiple phases and handle each one of them in the order of succession.

Phases that should feature in your ‘clean for home open’ program are –

De-cluttering – Ever since the era of cave dwelling ancestors, human beings have had a marked tendency to collect things and over a period of time this creates a lot of clutter around the house. With every corner being cluttered, not only does the house appear untidy but also small in terms of space, thus leaving a negative impression on any visitor.

Therefore, you must embark on your preparation for open day by clearing out all the clutter in form of excess belongings, photographs, decoration pieces, appliances and so on. Towards the end of this phase your house will appear spacious and clean, thus leaving a good impression on whoever comes to take a look.

Beautification – For the interior of your home to appear at its best, you could try placing potted plants at various locations wherein they would complement the décor in the best way possible. Repairing and polishing of wooden furniture is another step that would enable you to beautify your home’s interiors as it would provide the much needed freshness.

A perfect example of how the interior should look like on home open day
A perfect example of how the interior should look like on home open day

Dusting – On the open day for inspection, there should not be even a single speck of dust in your home, whether it is the door and window frames or counter-tops, cupboards and cabinets.

Imagine yourself entering a property which is up for sale and finding everything covered with dust – won’t it cause you to form a negative impression and strike off the name from your list? Considering that people who come to visit your property would also have the same mindset, you must be thorough while dusting the interior.

Refurbishing – Given that a positive first impression during an open day could go a long way in speeding up the sale of the property, one of the ways by which you can achieve this entails ensuring that your furnishings exude freshness in terms of look and feel. To this effect, you can either buy new curtains and get the upholstery changed or alternatively indulge in thorough deep cleaning of the carpet and fabric.

Ultimately on open day the furnishings should be free from dirt, grime or unsightly stains and should also give out the impression of being clean and well-maintained on being touched or felt.

Cleaning the Outdoor – As soon as a prospective buyer walks turns up to see your property, the first aspect he would come across is the lawn and outdoor area. Finding it unclean and cluttered would cause him to wonder if the interior would also be the same and you will have lost a potential customer even before he walked into your house.

Such a situation is best avoided by dedicating at least a day or a minimum of few hours to clean up the outdoor wherein you can gather all the toys in a basket, neatly arrange the tools in a corner, trim the grass and remove the weeds.

Set up the Atmosphere for Home Open Day

To sell your house, it is important to create a good first impression on prospective buyers and setting up the atmosphere of the house plays an instrumental role in this regard. All your efforts should be channelled towards activities that add to the aura of elegance and warmth so that anyone who walks in through the door would immediately welcomed and at ease.

Greeting Visitors on Home Open Day
Greeting Visitors on Home Open Day

Whom Should You Expect on Open Day?

Assuming that you have cleaned your house for the open day, advertised extensively and organized the infrastructure, it is time to prepare yourself for all kinds of visitors who could possibly walk in under the pretext of being potential buyers.

Following are some categories to which people who walk in through the gate on open day could belong –

Unqualified clients – There are people who lack the finances for buying a property owing to a variety of reasons ranging from low income to bankruptcy. These are referred to as being unqualified clients because they are not in a position to buy or mortgage a house. However, despite not having any rhyme or reason, they still walk all over the property and take an interest in every aspect.

Neighbours – ‘Curiosity thy name is neighbourhood’ – In no other situation would this adage be more applicable than in case of an open day. When you clean for home open, an eventuality that you should be prepared for entails watching neighbours walk into your house and making all kinds of inquiries ranging from price to cleanliness and colour of fabric and curtains. Since most neighbours are driven by curiosity more than any other factor, you would do well to exercise patience and humour them without divulging any sensitive information.

Burglars – For thieves, robbers and burglars, a home open day offers a golden opportunity to visit the house and take note of the expensive items. If you organize home open day on your own, chances of preventing a burglar from walking in are virtually nil. But if you have opted to go through a real estate agent, then you can always request him to thoroughly vet every visitor, thus minimizing the probability of having to entertain a dubious visitor.

Qualified buyers – These are potential customers who might have actually arrived with the intention of buying the property. Usually, such individuals are forthcoming about their intention of making an investment and hence ask plenty of probing questions. As the owner of the property, this is the kind of visitor that you must value above everyone else and hence not just answer all his queries but also discuss about the house in great detail.

Buyers for permanent homes – This segment comprises of people that intend to buy a permanent home for themselves but usually take a very long time to make up their minds. With such individuals, you must exercise caution in terms of not exaggerating because they can easily catch you on the wrong foot courtesy of having been on numerous such visits.

If you have a strong acumen for marketing, it is sure to come in handy during the home open day as it would enable you to interact with all kinds of people. Add to that a healthy dose of instinct or intuition and you will be able to discern the kind of visitors that walk in and ensure the safety of your property as also your family.

Organizing Home Open Day through a Real Estate Agent

Suppose you decide in favour of opting for a real estate agent to organize the sale of your property, the next step would entail waiting for the moment when the estate agent would give you the go-ahead for organizing a home open day.

In such an arrangement, the responsibility of bringing customers after having checked their background and credit status is that of the sales person. Your responsibility, as the owner of the property, is to clean for home open and create a congenial ambience so that the first and lasting impression is good. That being said, what you must realize is that an estate agent’s method of conducting an open day would vary from how you would conduct on your own.

While trusting your real estate agent to find a buyer for your property, following are the conditions that you should be prepared for –

  • Most likely your realtor would not want you to be around during the open day owing to the opinion that visitors are more comfortable looking around in the absence of home owners.
  • Since he is in charge of selling the house, the realtor would not want you to interact with a prospective customer due to the possibility of direct dealing.
  • On the day of home open, even your pets would need to be taken off the premises so that they do not interfere with the tour of the house. You can either keep the pet with you or leave it at a kennel for that particular day.
  • After cleaning your home thoroughly you must remember to deodorize it so that there are no remnant smells for the realtor or the guests to figure out.
  • Your realtor will ask you to return home once all the visits are over and then he would brief you over the range of prices offered as also chances of a sale.

Home Open Day being conducted by a Realtor
Home Open Day being conducted by a Realtor

Final Word

Often it is best if the home owner plays host during the open day and shows the guests around since not only is he knowledgeable about the property but can also provide a personal touch that could render the visit special. Only when the home owner is incapable or diffident about playing host should the task be handed over to a realtor.

Either ways, it is security which is the primary concern while conducting an open day along with the possibility of getting a good price for the property. Not only should you be vigilant about your belongings but also make it a point to maintain a record of registration forms for that day so as to follow up on the inquiries. To clean for home open day is definitely arduous but it still an exercise that is likely to accrue rich dividends in future.

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