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Neighbors ALWAYS go to open houses to benchmark the market.
Probably would have been a good idea for you to do the same to see the comps.
Meanwhile, LOL. I bought my condo because of an open house.
I hated the three units the agent had an open house for. I was simply driving by and saw the sign and balloons and was curious about the community.
Then two months later she called me with a new listing in the same place BEFORE it went on the market and I bought it that day. Cash sale no contingencies except the inspection.
Why in the world would anyone be against open houses?
I'm going to be selling my condo. I guess I won't tell any neighbors and certainly WILL NOT let them in to see it!!
As much as fresh buyers, I have had buyers come through at open house, making a second visit with the family, using the open house as a way to show the house to the gang.
Then, we have a contract within a couple of days.
I never recommend Open House in occupied properties.
Sellers say, "But, you will be there, right?"
"Sure I will. With 15 other people going all through the house? I cannot control them, keep them off beds, out of drawers, etc."
I think the liabilities for the seller outweigh the advantages at that point.
We'd been looking at homes with our realtor and we didn't want to bother her on a Sunday because she'd worked so hard with us earlier in the week. We found an open house advertisement in an area which we hadn't included in our search (it was just a couple of miles out of our search area) and it was also not showing up in our searches because it was literally $100 lower than the low threshold in our online search parameters.
My husband and I just really wanted to check out that particular area and we figured an open house would fit the bill.
By the time we stepped into the foyer, we were in love with the house and by the time we had been in there about five minutes, my husband turned around to me and said, "I think we have to buy this house, don't you?"
So - an open house sold the house to us. We never would have found this house without it.
We did immediately tell the listing agent that we had a realtor.
Anyway, I sold real estate for about six years. Not all properties are suitable for an open house, but some are. In our area, homes in the historic district are particularly suitable for open houses. i have sold several homes directly from an open house.
In other homes where the buyer has really wanted to host an open house, but the home wasn't ideal for it, I've sat in an empty house for two hours.
So it really just depends on various factors - in our market, usually location.
Unless there is something truly unique about the house ... No.
(iow it's NOT one of a hundred similar on a development)
otoh... the BUYERS agent caravan approach does have more general merit.
A sunny weekday morning, they're all in & out in less than an hour
and you don't even need to bake any cookies.
They know who is looking to buy and what they're looking for
and even if your home IS one of a hundred in a development...
the tour is good as a means to "rule out" the known/expected age/design issues
that most developments and aged properties get known for.
One of the 'good gal' realtors confirmed for me what jghorton says below: open houses are more for the realtor's self-promotion than to sell your house. My question would be: why did your house not sell yet?
So why would you care if your Realtor holds an open house at your house? There's some perhaps low chance it might help sell your house, it does no harm, and may motivate your Realtor to give you better service.
I just tell my Realtor, do whatever you like, just get my house sold as quickly as possible for the best price. I don't care whether or not there are any open houses.
I never recommend Open House in occupied properties.
Sellers say, "But, you will be there, right?"
"Sure I will. With 15 other people going all through the house? I cannot control them, keep them off beds, out of drawers, etc."
I think the liabilities for the seller outweigh the advantages at that point.
When my last principal residence sold I had already removed any valuables or they were packed in sealed boxes in a big stack of boxes in my garage.
Around my area, the open house is often used as a tool to condense all showings to a specific time period. Many listings will indicate that there will be no showings until the open house and all offers will be due by X date. This is especially true in the spring.
I bought my current house after initially seeing it at the open house, though I did schedule a follow up showing after the open house. During the open house, I overheard two conversations between the realtor and a couple visitors. One party drove by the house all the time and wanted to check out the inside and the second was an antique home aficionado and wanted to see the inside of a first period home. So, yes, many visitors are not potential buyers.
I typically prefer to visit open houses because they are more relaxed than scheduled showings and I can go to as many as I want without having to tie up a ton of my realtors time.
Both of the realtors we've worked with to sell houses have not been big fans of open houses - their feeling is that they just attract lookie loos, not serious, qualified buyers. However, two houses ago we were trying to sell in 2009 in a terrible market where there just weren't buyers. We were selling a two year old house that was priced $15k under comparable resales and $30k+ under what it would cost to build the same model in our still being built neighborhood. The market was so slow that it took a full month before we even had a showing. After 5 months, we were at do or die point and asked for an open house as a last ditch effort. Our agent didn't even attend the open house - she had one of her peons do it. Two couples came through (did I mention it was a slow market?) and one of them ended up coming back two days later for a second look and making an offer two days after that.
Of course, we've struck gold both times we've sold with things going the way conventional wisdom says they never do. We sold last spring and the buyers had actually seen the house only once, 10 days before putting in the offer. It was a pretty hot market, they were shopping from afar, and a comparable house down the street hit the market for $25k over our asking price the day they made their offer. We think that listing spooked them and also made them see the value of our house. (Fwiw, the only reason we were even on the market for as long as we were - a total of 14 days - was because that house backed up to some condos. Otherwise, it would have sold the first weekend.)
I'm going to sum up my answer because this topic is getting repetitious so this is my final answer:
Get a good real estate agent, one that you have good relationship with or trust to represent your best interests, and then just follow your agent's advice.
An open house isn't going to hurt anything. It may or may not help.
If you don't trust your real estate agent's advice then you need a different agent.
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