Open Houses - Benefits Realtors or Sellers?

17 years ago

I do not want to do an open house. (My house is not yet on market.) I know my realtor typically has open houses though. I feel that open houses really are where a bunch of neighbors walk through your house.

Are open houses something that benefit the realtor or the seller? I've been to a ton of open houses, but have never bought the house. I admit it...sometimes I go to them b/c I'm nosey or bored that day or b/c the house caught my eye. I guess I feel that if a buyer really wants to see a house they will make arrangements with their realtors to see it.

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Comments (19)

quirkyquercus
17 years ago
BOTH!
For the seller it gets exposure.
Having neighbors looking at your house isn't half bad. While it may take up a lot of time, they DO talk to their friends who want in the neighborhood and their friends DO come and take interest.

For the agent it helps to generate leads for them. What did you think that they were just going to devote an entire day on the chance they will sell and make a commission? :-) Right. Agents, like houses, can never get enough exposure.

Do the open house. And also have a mortgage guy come too. There's a whole army of people you can get to attend your open house to help you for free in exchance for some leads.
xamsx
17 years ago
It depends on the area. In my area of NYS, OH sell houses. Of course a seller is going to do one here! In other areas, it is lookie-lous and sign ups for the agent. Our agent held one OH for us, but since he no longer does them (he states that right up front, it is his staff) and heÂs a top seller in this area (he does not schlep buyers, he only sells); I do not think an OH gets him much personal business. I'm not sure if the people who bought from us came through at our OH, but we were sold within a week.

I'd always do an OH or two... lookie-lous have friends and relatives who may be searching for a home. As quirkyquercus suggested, the more exposure you have the better.
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chisue
17 years ago
An Open House is one more way to get market exposure for your house. Especially if you are in a buyers market, you'll want to do *everything* that will help you to sell. So...clean up, de-clutter to the max, lock up your valuables and listen to what the professional you hire tells you.
cpowers21
17 years ago
I agree with everyone on here that open houses can benefit both. A neighbor might have a relative coming from out of state or have friends that are moving.....there are plenty of scenarios. While the actual buyers may not enter your open house, they may result from being told about your home from someone that did go through it.
novahomesick
17 years ago
I was pretty skeptical about Open Houses until I sold one of my houses during one. We had our first Open two days after listing. We received one offer three hours after the Open House was over and received another offer from a couple who sat down and wrote a contract with my agent during the Open. We chose the latter. Worked great for us and really well for my agent! I've also come very close to making an offer based on a home that I saw during an Open. It was love at first sight but we got transfer orders two days later. Sigh. So, you never know what can happen and it's one more channel to showcase your property. I'm a believer.
sparksals
17 years ago
I'm a nosey neighbour too. I always go to an OH if I see signs in our area. I go because i want to compare houses to mine in terms of upgrades, selling price, etc.

I'm with the others, don't discount it. You could find the buyer in a very short period of time.

I have to say that I find it a bit odd that you don't have a problem going to an open house as a nosey neighbour (like I am), but you don't want people coming to your home. I guess I understand, but I also see that as a bit of a double standard. No offence, just an observation.
melrosgirl
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks, Everyone. Yes it is a double standard, but that's why I asked. I wouldn't have admitted to being nosey myself had I been embarrassed by it. I'm just realistic that not everyone at an open house is looking to purchase a house.
quirkyquercus
17 years ago
They're not but you have to take the bad with the good. You don't want the house on the market for a long time.
gardenspice
17 years ago
We almost bought a house that we saw in an open house. (The inspection turned up serious foundation issues that we were not up for repairing and that we could not negotiate to our liking.)
When my neighbors sold their house, they encouraged other neighbors to come by and give them feedback. (My feedback was "don't leave the Mont Blanc pen out on on the desk.") They really did not need the feedback though, the open house yielded 3 offers.
clg7067
17 years ago
My neighbor invited the whole neighborhood to her open house yesterday. I went, and while I was there chatting, one of the other neighbors came looking for a house for her mother who is relocating here.

Also, I tried to buy a house that I saw at a open house, but somebody else from the open house beat me to it!
chispa
17 years ago
An open house can also create a bit of urgency/competition in the mind of a buyer. If you go to an open house and see lots of people making favorable comments, you will probably make your offer right away, instead of going home and thinking about it. I saw my current house early in the week, DH saw it a few days later. We made the offer on Saturday, before the open house on Sunday. The realtor still went ahead with the open house and mentioned to the visitors that it had an accepted offer.
jakkom
17 years ago
Out here the RE agents do 3 types of open houses: 1 for the agents, 1 for the neighbors, and 2-3 for buyers.
sweet_tea
17 years ago
It(Open House) is a sure way to meet neighbors. But often they say that they are looking for a friend or relative. Often they just don't have the guts to say that they are just a lookie-loo.

Actually, just putting up a For Sale sign is a great way to meet neighbors. They come out of the woodwork to talk to you to see why you are selling, where you are moving, etc.

You will meet more neighbors with a For Sale sign or an Open House then you will with a House Warming party. Why? Because they want to know your business and see your home, but don't want to get to know you. Nothing wrong with it, just how things have become.
jy_md
17 years ago
Our agent did what Jkom51 wrote - she did 3 types of open houses: the first one was the brokers' open house on Wednesday afternoon; the second one was for the neighbors (flyers were put in all the mailboxes in the neighborhood but otherwise not advertised); and then she held open houses for potential buyers (we had 4 open houses).

I liked the fact that she flat-out acknowledged that the neighbors were part of the process and an open house for them was held. It prevented any resentment toward a natural curiosity. For us, it also helped quite a bit; the neighbors were instrumental in selling the house (very nice and welcoming to visitors as well as complimentary toward the house).
quiltglo
17 years ago
I actually enjoyed visiting with the lookie loo's. We were a neighborhood of 70's houses and it was fun comparing the challenges of updating from the avocado most of us were stuck with originally.

Since we did FSBO, I didn't see any neighbors except for ones who really were interested. I think the fact that they had to face us rather than an agent made them too sheepish to admit they just wanted to be nosey.

We did most of our showings through open houses. Much less painful than individual showing. We sold through an open house.

I've never been one to just go and visit open houses, so when I went, I was in the market to buy and was trying to see as many homes as I could.

Gloria
newjerseybt
17 years ago
We sold 3 homes through FSBO open houses and bought 2 through open houses. One we bought through a Realtor open house and the second we bought was a FSBO open house.

The first 2 homes we sold by FSBO were bought by the first 2 lookers within 30 minutes and the 3rd FSBO home sale took 30 days.

The last house (4th) we sold through a realtor, had 21 open houses and we struck out on all of them. This was 6 months ago. A buyer's agent finally came through after we heavily discounted and raised the commission.
babyv7
17 years ago
I just listed my home about 6 weeks ago and I also felt the same way you do. I talked to my realtor about it & she was very upfront with me and said that she's never sold a home as a result of an open house. She said they benefit the realtor more than the seller. I told her I didn't want an open house (although I was fine with having a caravan or broker's open house). Also, I just completed a real estate course as I'm going for my license to sell real estate & I can tell you that as a future agent, I wouldn't discourage my clients from holding an open house, but I still wouldn't want to have one when selling my own home. In the 6 weeks that I've had my home on the market, I've had a caravan and about 8 or 9 potential buyers come through which is great considering the time of the year. I had one offer already which was weak so I rejected it & another offer may be coming through today. So long as your home is priced right & shows (staged) well, you should be fine without an open house.
minet
17 years ago
I agree with babyv7. We sold our house in SoCal in November and we said right off that we didn't want to do an open house. Our realtor (one we'd used before and trusted) agreed and said they mostly benefited realtors and he would rather do a broker's caravan, which were held every Wednesday in our city. DH and I both worked full-time, he was moving out of state for his job and I just didn't want to give up an afternoon every weekend for an open house.

I went to all the open houses in our neighborhood for a few months when we first thought about selling. I was there just to see what my competition was. Some houses had one every weekend. One house had an open house every Tuesday afternoon (?). I felt sorry for those lonely agents. One of them (not a very good one!) confessed that the house was overpriced but the owner just wouldn't reduce it.

We priced our house reasonably and it sold even in a market where "no one was buying." Last I checked most of the other houses are still on the market. I think the right pricing is what will attract the most interest and most serious buyers will schedule appointments and not just go to open houses.

We just bought a house in Oregon and went to two open houses but the others we saw were scheduled showings with our realtor. We bought one we saw with him.

But this may be a regional thing and I would go with whatever works in your area. If people are used to open houses then I would do at least one or two, but not every weekend.
share_oh
17 years ago
We bought our house as a result of an Open House. My dh became quite hooked on going to open houses every weekend. One day he came home and told me I must go see this house and we ended up buying it.

Open Houses - Benefits Realtors or Sellers?

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quirkyquercus

xamsx

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Open Houses - Benefits Realtors or Sellers?

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