Pros and Cons of Open Houses

Open houses once were the preferred way to get as many possible buyers’ eyes as possible on your home. You’d frantically clean, mow and trim ahead of the big event, then leave the house for the day as your real estate agent stayed behind to show people through the home in hopes of bagging a sale.

But the open house is losing favor among many real estate professionals, who argue it’s a time-wasting exercise that rarely results in an offer on the house.

Virtual whole-house tours on the Internet now serve the same purpose as an open house by giving potential buyers a first look at the property, they argue – and no one has to sit in the house all day waiting for viewers who might or might not be serious buyers.

Even some sellers have jumped on the anti-open house bandwagon, saying most of the people coming through are just nosy neighbors curious about the home’s interior.

Other real estate professionals say they still see benefits to open houses.

“I always think it’s worth having an open house, especially now with the market softer than it was,” said Coral May, vice president for business development at Prudential Carruthers REALTORS®, a RealEstate.com-affiliated brokerage in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area.

“Open houses create activity,” added May, whose office is in Fairfax, Va. “Builders are still building models, furnishing them and selling them, so people do go to open houses. Some of the old standbys still apply.”

Kathy Aymard, manager of Prudential Carruthers’ Annapolis, Md., office, says the effectiveness of an open house depends in part on location. It’s difficult to get people to an open house in a rural area, but one on a popular street might have a lot of visitors, she said.

Open houses are more successful when they are well marketed, Aymard added. Targeted e-mail “blasts” to other agents working in the area and invitations to neighbors can generate traffic, she said. Neighbors sometimes know someone interested in buying in the neighborhood. “It’s also a nice way to say ‘This home is on the market’ and letting other agents know about it.”

Aymard acknowledged that open houses were more important selling tools before the Internet and other technology-based marketing. It remains a way to get people in the house, though.

“Most houses don’t get a contract because of an open house, but it can be a nice way of introducing the home to the market and getting some chatter,” she said.

Not all open houses are for buyers. Agents also host open houses for other real estate professionals, providing some incentive like a catered lunch. “It’s very effective. They’re not expected to bring buyers, so you have time to sit down and talk about the house,” Aymard said.

Showing the home to other agents increases its exposure exponentially, because each agent now knows about the house and can show it later to their own clients.

Added Aymard: “The most important thing for sellers to do is to have a really strong, good listing agent and trust they know how to sell the house.”