Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
We had our house for sale for 6 months with many "Open Houses"...we are re-listing with our realtor on November 1st. Our realtor (who I really like and trust) is BIG on having open houses..one every other Sunday. Seriously,
does having "Open House" help the seller or the realtor.
Didn't seem to help us before and I am not looking forward to having to vacate every other Sunday again.
(To be fair to my agent, our home is in Sarasota, Fl...where nothing is moving.)
We had our house for sale for 6 months with many "Open Houses"...we are re-listing with our realtor on November 1st. Our realtor (who I really like and trust) is BIG on having open houses..one every other Sunday. Seriously,
does having "Open House" help the seller or the realtor.
Didn't seem to help us before and I am not looking forward to having to vacate every other Sunday again.
(To be fair to my agent, our home is in Sarasota, Fl...where nothing is moving.)
I don't know why realtors' push this or sellers are brainwashed to believe these are a good idea. Open houses are the biggest waste of time IMO. They open up the seller to security issues and the only thing the realtor's assistant is doing there is basically paperwork and telling the nosy neighbors to sign the sheet. I believe I read somewhere that less than 1% of homes are sold as a result of an open house.
When I was selling though, anytime my competition had an open house, I would sign as joe schmoe and be the nosy neighbor to see what I was up against..... sad but true....
I am in Bradenton. There were 2 open houses on my street yesterday. Signs were up ALL OVER the area several days ahead of time. All of the requisite balloons & streamers were out. Ads were in the paper. Realtors were in place early. Only person showed up and only looked at one of the houses. Neighborhood is pretty decent, with large lots and not very much traffic.
I see people pull flyers out of the box on both of these homes every day. They either laugh out loud or crumple them in disgust. Both houses are priced well above what the average joe can afford to pay for them.
If I were a seller in this market I might agree to 1 open house, but certainly not one every two weeks.
As a buyer, I do not go to open houses. I hate having the sellers agent up my behind telling me all of the "features" while glossing over the not so desirable aspects.
Honestly....I've had about 400 open houses hosted at my listings and only sold 2 homes as a direct result of said open houses. If I my math is right, that's like 0.5%!!!
Great numbers huh? Open houses in a hot neighborhood, or in a good seller's market are the way to go and a great way to get multiple offers...but since the Summer of 2005 when the market (at least in my area) began to soften a little, open houses became more of a waste of time. Open houses are a good way for the Realtor to get new buyer leads, and that may be why he keeps doing them. Think of it this way, at least he is trying to do that! Most Realtors don't do that much for their clients. Good luck this time around!
Open houses, IMO, are a total waste of time. A decent (not rusty and worn out) sign in the yard with a good marketing plan, followed by pre-qualifying and screening potential buyers with excellent one on one service is the only way to go. Perhaps, once upon a time (like the 50's, maybe), they were an effective tool. Today they are a waste of time for the Realtor, an inconvenience to the client, and they expose the seller to serious risk of potential theft. By and large, AFAIC, an open house is used exclusively to flatter the owner/seller and to persuade the owner/seller that the agent really is trying.
My realtor usually thinks they are a waste of time, but ALL of our real possible buyers have come from opens, so she continues to do them. I think they are hit or miss. The two homes we have sold in the past the buyers also came from opens. (Sort of, the first one did. The second one the first buyers came from an open but we opted to sell to a person who came with their agent due to offering more money.)
My mother sold her house through open houses selling FSBO right at the end of the boom. She was lucky though, she literally had someone walk in off the street that needed exactly what we had, had a credit score over 800, and he and his father were going to move in and they both owned their houses outright. I don't think in this market that is really happening anymore.
However, if nothing is selling then you really don't have anything to lose giving it everything you've got. You could talk to your agent about the fact that having one every other Sunday is just too much. Also, maybe ask about doing a Saturday instead of Sunday? We did a couple of open houses before we signed on with a realtor (trying to save money) and never had a single person on a Sunday.
Open houses are another way for a broker to recruit agents and an agent to get buyer(s).
Personally, I visit them in my sphere of influence for product knowledge, but that's not the agent nor the seller's intention in having them open.
One of my recent seller customers told me they bought their house from an open, so they were all for it even though in this market it's not as productive as in years past.
Last edited by TampaKaren; 10-23-2007 at 08:16 AM..
Open Houses can work or not. Generally they probably dont work as a potential buyer will contact an agent if they are trully interested in a particular property. Open Houses are generally hard to schedule around other events in a small community. Generally all the clients or potentaial buyers are neighbors just wanting to look.And it does take alot of work and energy from you and agent to host a Open House. Weigh the good and the bad before you decide to do them. Good luck
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)
sad but true....
