Open House Day
Helping your broker get you top dollar: make yourself some coffee, then go out to brunch
Selling real estate in New York City can be every bit as glamorous as it seems on TV. Most agents love attending champagne-and-sushi happy hours atop newly christened condo high-rises at sunset, or entertaining investors who have just breezed into town for the week to snap up a few condos to balance their portfolios. These moments rank right up there with giving high-fives to buyers who have just received an accepted offer, or shaking a seller's hand at the closing table. These are truly high points for us.
But, as you might guess, a lot of hard work goes into the mix as well. And it's not all glitz and glamour. Behind the scenes, on open house day, we go to great lengths to create an air of easy charm. It's prime time for your apartment, and every detail counts! Here's what you can do to help us get your apartment to show at its absolute best when it counts the most:
- Make some coffee. Seriously, this is the perfect aroma to greet first-time visitors to your home. It communicates optimism and new beginnings.
- Eat out! Open house day is not the time to cook your famous three-alarm garlic-jalapeno omelet. I'm sure it smells very tempting fresh off the skillet, but this – and other food smells – do not age well!
- Hit the lights. Some apartments have 20+ distinct light switches, and it can take time to access all of them. Just for today, leave all the lights on – even the under-cabinet ones in the kitchen, and the stove light – because we will want your apartment to shine its brightest today. (And I promise we will turn them off when we are done.)
- Roll 'em up! Speaking of light, since you are probably the world's foremost expert on your own window blinds, go ahead and open them up as high and wide as they will go. Unless we have agreed in advance that we want to de-emphasize a particular exposure (overlooking an ugly neighboring rooftop, for example), we generally prefer to have as much sky on display as possible. (And if we break your blinds, we will feel awful!)
- And this should be obvious but… As a reminder, since I'm sure we will have discussed this by now: The apartment should be freshly cleaned, dishes should be cleaned and put away, clothes and toys neatly stowed in closets. And oh yes, please let your tenants, out-of-town guests, and dog-walkers know about the open house! (Once I showed up on open house day in a unit that was being used as a glorified Airbnb… not only did I have to do a kitchen full of dishes, I also had wake up and shoo away some hungover tenants! It may sound ridiculous, but this sort of thing does happen.)
