It’s always helpful to have people excited about your listing, whether it’s a rental or a home for sale. A bit of anticipation and a sense that there’s competition often serves to generate strong offers. I use a couple strategies to create buzz about properties.
One approach is putting a house on the MLS for a week or so, but not letting anyone see it until I hold an open house. Holding back on access to the listing creates a little extra eagerness and sometimes it even yields better offers. After all, when 20 people show up at an open house and they see others oohing and aahing about a property, it ends up creating a sense of competition. Truly interested buyers feel a sense of pressure because they don’t want to miss an opportunity. Most also see that lowball offers won’t fly.
The approach is especially effective when you have a unique offering. I had an Eichler located in Sunnyvale’s Cumberland Elementary school district and I knew they were pretty popular among buyers interested in mid-century modern houses. In fact, one had sold recently in Sunnyvale at $227,000 over the asking price. So I listed my Eichler on the MLS, applied my customized online marketing campaign, and set a date for the first open house a week later. When I arrived 30 minutes before the scheduled open house time to prepare, I discovered 14 people standing in line!
With that property, I also listed it at $850,000–about $50,000 below what I though it would sell for. By undercutting the price a bit, the listing created even more buzz, especially among Eichler enthusiasts. The result: The house sold for $910,000– $60,000 over the asking price.
This delayed open house strategy also works for rental property. I use in when I’m serving as a property manager, and you can do it for apartments you manage on your own. Right now, there’s already some built-in competition for apartments because demand for them is so high now. So pulling in 15 or 20 prospective renters to an open house provides a just one more competitive edge helping to land the best tenants. When people see 15 or 20 others vying for a unit, prospective renters are more likely to submit an application and move quickly on an apartment they like.
Another benefit is that I save time by doing group open houses. Rather than running over to show an apartment seven separate times, I often find the perfect tenant—or buyer—during a two-hour, specified group open house.
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Sunnyvale reisdents are invited to come dispose of out-dated paper documents to prevent identity theft and free up space in their homes.
The August/September issue of 
I frequently get invited by Silicon Valley developers and builders to tour new construction developments and quite often, they offer free food! I’m going to start a category dedicated to letting readers know of events including where you can enjoy free food while touring some model homes. One catch, you’ll have to contact me, so I can RSVP you.
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