Want to raise awareness for your community while also benefiting your HOA budget? Consider hosting a fall tour of homes in your community. Both neighbors within your community and admiring locals will appreciate being able to get a glimpse into the featured homes’ interiors and walk away with a few fall decorating ideas too.
Another advantage of hosting a fall tour of homes within your neighborhood is that it can increase demand for your community, which ultimately benefits home values. A key objective that an HOA board is tasked with is increasing property values, so hosting a fall tour of homes aligns with this goal.
If your HOA is going to host a tour of homes in your community to showcase new or existing real estate development, our property management company suggests these tips for organizing a successful event:
- Determine your goals.
Does your HOA have a financial goal that it wants to achieve by using the tour of homes as a fundraiser? Do you want to host a tour of homes to increase the demand for your community? Beginning the planning process by determining your goals will make sure that the event ties back to your overall mission.
- Get residents in your community on board.
The fall home tour should benefit the greater good of the HOA community. For instance, maybe the funds raised will allow your neighborhood to add a community playground without raising HOA fees. Knowing your goals before presenting the idea to the community for approval will help to get residents on board.
- Decide the format for your neighborhood home tour.
Will your tour feature the interior of homes or will it be a garden tour? How many properties will be featured on the tour?
- Identify community partners.
Instead of dipping into your HOA budget to host the fall homes tour, identify community partners that could donate in exchange for the exposure they would receive.
- Establish a steering committee.
The steering community could include members of your HOA community and community partners and is responsible for recruiting volunteers, planning schedules, and more.
- Choose the featured homes.
There are many ways to choose the homes that will be featured on your fall home tour. A best practice is to choose a theme, such as an architectural style, that will tie the featured homes together. Your HOA community can either solicit nominations or make their own selections.
- Create a marketing plan.
Once you know which homes will be featured on the fall home tour, you can begin to create a marketing plan to promote your event. Reach out to local media, display signage at local businesses and nearby intersections, and turn to social media to spread the word about your event.
- Manage logistics.
To minimize the number of cars entering your community, you may want to use buses as a way to transport participants to the various homes on the tour. Stock up on supplies such as cash, tickets, wristbands, refreshments, etc to help make the tour go smoothly.
Hosting a fall home tour is a great way to promote new real estate development, but it also can work just as well to showcase existing homes in your community.
Contact us at Vesta Property Services to help your fall home tour go off without a hitch, whether you’ll be featuring new real estate development or existing homes with your HOA community.
