If you are planning for your own open house in Portland, you won’t have much trouble finding good advice. Here’s a quick list of what you’ll find:

  • Don’t leave your pet behind
  • Don’t forget the yard
  • If you’re not confident in your house cleaning ability, trust that instinct (hire a pro)!
  • It’s the kitchen, stupid (really: don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink)
  • Clear out the medicine cabinet
  • Fresh bath towels

 

These are all sound pieces of advice   (although the medicine cabinet one should be more comprehensive: any valuable items should also be packed away). It’s why you’ll find some variation of those pointers on just about everyone’s ‘Top Ten Tips for Holding an Open House.’

There are also some open house tips that may not apply to every Portland open house, but which deserve to be in the running anyway. One good idea syncs with the last bullet point: white-out the bathroom. Instead of just seeing that the towels are fresh, use fluffy white ones that you only bring out for your open house or other showing. White and fluffy = fresh and bright to most people. If your Portland home has a shower curtain, consider whether replacing it with a white one might be worth the effort as well.

Another tip is to turn on every lamp, flip every switch, check every faucet, flush every toilet. Picture a house visit that’s going really well—then is interrupted when a switch doesn’t work or a faucet leak can’t be stopped. Every agent knows what happens: they flip the switch back and forth three or four times (or use both hands trying to turn the faucet)—and the conversation is immediately derailed while they fiddle with the single tiny mishap. Those kinds of events plant doubt in anyone’s mind: it’s unreasonable, but human nature. As a side corollary, don’t run your facility check five minutes before the open house begins. A failed overhead light means hunting down a ladder, finding a replacement bulb, etc.; a faucet leak or running toilet, much longer to fix.

An extra tip is to give the floors special attention. If you have taken good care of beautiful floors by protecting them with throw and area rugs, unless they are themselves showpieces, you’ll probably do well to roll them up temporarily. Wide areas of open hardwood flooring can be a real selling point.

Every Portland Metro area open house and showing appointment is its own special event—one that that calls for some preparations that are unique to your property. We can help with this: being able to call upon experienced ‘eyes on the target’ is one of the benefits our clients are able to rely on. Call us!  

Craig Reger Group

503.893.2022

 We sell more because we do more.