Open houses do work. Many buyers go out looking at homes on their own before signing with an agent. Agents usually cooperate with buyer clients of other agents in some areas and this gives the agent a chance to register their buyer in advance and send the buyer to the open house. Sometimes if there are many people at the open house a buyer who has an interest may want to write an offer before someone else does.

Sarah,

Absolutely......

Open houses work from both a buyer's and seller's perspective. We will be doing two of them today and expect to meet at least ten interested parties. Last weekend one company did an open house in one of our local condos and had over 100 visitors.

Buyers get a chance to get a better feel for the local inventory, the seller increases their chances of selling their property through increased visibility, and the agent benefits from making new contacts. Sound to me like it a perfect win, win, win situation.

I'm an Agent and so far have not had huge success with Open Houses. BUT...I did buy my house (prior to being an Agent), by going to it's Open House. I guess it's just the luck of the draw.

in all due respect,

no, open houses do not work,

Agents will do an open house to make you feel good, or to satisify the "marketing objective" that they promised when listing the house...

Open Houses work very well if you plan them well. I wrote an article, "13 Steps to a Successful Open House" last provides a detailed Open House Plan with a WOW! factor.

Sarah,

Good article on the subject in the web reference.

See ya,

Jeffrey

Sarah,

Open houses are a marketing tool to help the listing agent's company get buyers, but not for your home. The hope is that the people visiting the open house are buyers that are looking, either casually or seriously, for a home in the area. It's the agent's job that's holding the open house to try to get as much information about the people so that they can be marketed to, in the hope that they will use the listing agent's company to buy a house, but the percentage of time that the buyer coming to your open house actually ends up buying it, is often less than 4%. There are much more effective ways to spend time and money marketing your house. Open houses are inconvenient for you, of little true benefit in selling your home, but of significant benefit to the company listing your house (read - makes them a lot of money selling the buyer a different home).

With larger brokerages, it's actually not uncommon for a buyer's agent that works for the company that has your listing, to be the one that actually sits at your home during the open house. This is logical, since the buyer's agent is going to be the one to represent the buyer when they go buy another home.

If you're not inconvenienced by the open house, and you're not pulling your hair out having to clean and organize the home for one, then by all means, have it. But don't count on it to sell your home. You're not the one getting the benefit by having one, your agent's brokerage is.

Good luck,

Jeffrey

I agree with LA Lending, and with Robin,

When I was an active buyer, I used the internet to pick the open houses I wanted to go to. If I saw others in the same neighborhood, I may have checked them out. But, now that I have the house I want, I still go to open houses in the neighborhood because I have friends looking for houses and I try to help them by taking a first look at the open houses.

Yes, open houses work. There is no reason not to do an open house. When selling a home you should combine as much marketing as you can, including newspapers, websites, lots of signs on the streets, and of course open houses. Don't get sucked into this doesn't work...that doesn't work. Selling a home requires a combination of marketing methods. Good luck.

I've held Open House quite a few times and the response rate has been very low, even with signs, balloons and ads. Most buyers go to the internet now and choose to view only the homes that fit their search criteria rather than riding around looking at homes that do not because of busy work and family schedules.

Open houses work - but not for the reasons you think. Usually the people who attend your open houses are neighbors or friends trying to show support. If the weather is good, you might get some home shoppers, but usually they do not have an immediate intent to buy.

What they do help with is the word of mouth advertising that you need. Your neighbors can be your best selling tool! They'll talk to other friends and family they want to live nearby. Consider throwing a neighborhood ice cream party!

If you do hold an open house, don't forget to advertise in the Open House section of the news paper.