The
Open House is another feature of the real estate market here that needs a
little translation for us Brits. When a home is up for sale, it is opened
up to any old nosey parker who wants to snoop around it, on Saturday and Sunday
afternoons, until it sells.
And it
worked! We had a couple more viewings after the Open House and ended up with
three offers. Now I see the benefit of the covering letter. The people with the
first offer also wrote a nice letter about how they wanted to start a family
here. Some other people referred to how much they wanted to live in Redondo
(the neighbouring city) in their letter – clearly not their first covering
letter, and how hard is it to search-and-replace Redondo with Hermosa? What
kind of people are they?! We were very happy to be able to accept the nice young
couple’s offer. And now we’re ready to resubmit our offer on Casa Del Sol –
only this time we’re not bothering with the covering letter.
The Open House isn’t just a matter of tidying up a
bit. This is a lifestyle we’re selling here, and to people who may have no imagination,
too. We’ve hidden all our clutter, put fresh flowers in every room, and put
away all our family photos in order to depersonalize it. Though the smiley face
I drew on the back of our bathroom door is hard to depersonalize. I set up a
little tray with drinks and a coffee table book outside on the deck, just in
case people didn’t realize this was a place you might sit and have a drink and
read a book. My husband even did a special double-fold trick with the towels, which
our realtor thought was a nice touch.
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