Open houses are essential for selling your home. They give buyers the opportunity to tour your home and visualize them living there. But an open house can also have a negative affect on buyers if the proper steps aren’t taken in advance. Let’s take a look at the tips below to help ensure a successful open house.  Clean & Organize: It is very important to clean and organize your home before your open house. A clean home gives the buyers an opportunity to see the home for what it is, and not all of your stuff and clutter. While touring your home, it will give the buyers the opportunity to visualize themselves living in the home and how they would set up each room. Clutter makes it difficult to do this as it makes rooms look smaller and covers up the true potential. Remove Personality: It’s best to remove your personality from your home when selling, and especially before an open house. You can always add your things back in after the open house. Things like pictures and picture frames, your children’s drawings on the refrigerator, other personal belongings, and so on. Removing your personality and creating a neutral home will better allow for buyers to visualize themselves living there and making it their own. Photos & Video: Since online research is often the first step one takes in the home buying process, the photos and video of your home will be the first impression that a buyer has. And you want to make that the best first impression possible. Having amazing photos of your home and posting them with your listing and online will likely attract more interest and therefore attracting more buyers to your open house. Photos that are not so great may make even the most amazing home seem drab and not worth the travel to the open house. The photos you place online could make or break a homebuyers interest and desire to see more. Social Media: Utilizing social media is the best way to get the word out about your home being on the market and your upcoming open house. Realtors and agents are already using it, but you should also be taking advantage of it. Sharing or creating posts of your online listing and asking your friends to share will only benefit you. You’d be surprised how many will comment on posts to tag their friends and family. It may bring more buyers and in turn speed up the sale of your home. Follow these tips for the most successful open house possible. It’s important to be mindful of the market and your home when determining what successful means, but what is important is an offer or multiple offers if you’re lucky. So spruce up your home and follow these tips and you should be on your way to placing a sold sign in front of your home in no time.