New Strategy

I may have a new trick up my real estate sleeve. A friend (who's a builder married to an agent in my neighborhood) called today to suggest this plan to me, and I like it. There is a Christmas Tour of Homes in my neighborhood in a week and a half. I knew she was doing it, but I didn't think to tag along. She suggested I have an open house on the same day. There are only 4 homes on the tour, and they are all in my subdivision. She estimates 200-300 people will be coming through. She has a home in this tour every year, sometimes even when they are for sale. Now, the people won't necessarily be in the market for a house, just browsing at other people's decorating. For the record, I'm not a decorator! But my oldest friend is, and I've already had her come over and help me out for a recent open house. I have other friends here who could help with the Christmas decorating, and my husband actually has a very good eye.



My agent is sceptical about the idea. She is calling now to see if she can just add my house to the tour or at least ask the organizer of the tour if she'd be comfortable with me having an open house at the same time. I guess it'd be better just to join the tour. Honestly, I can't imagine we'd need to get permission, but I know they have a relationship that my agent doesn't want to disrespect.



If it does happen, my next issue will be the holiday decorating itself. See, were we live, people have other people decorate their houses, and it looks like everything came out of an interior decorating magazine. Not one of the magazines I would read, either. We have more of a "lived in, family" style. While we don't keep clutter around, we also don't have 2 lamps on the mantle and over sized candlesticks and all that stuff I feel like people expect on a tour of homes. For Christmas, we use colored lights and passed down ornaments that have absolutely no color scheme. I don't know if we should do business as usual, or if we should switch to white lights and blue and silver matching tree stuff.



Funny story, our first Christmas here, I'm pretty sure we were the ONLY house with colored Christmas lights. Every year since, a house or two would go to colored. Last year, there was a good mix of colored and clear. Hehehe. Maybe we're rubbing off on 'em.



Anyway, what's your advice?