In my opinion the answer is…YES, if done properly.

Real Estate agents out there love to point out the statics that the odds of a house selling to a person who came through it at an “Open House” are very slim. I believe the NAR statistics says it is 1-3%.  I think this is mostly due to the fact that most agents don’t want to do them so they don’t work them well even when they do. Also, even though very few people go into an open house and buy “that” house, they may buy another. Think of the last house you bought. Can you honestly say that from the time you started looking to the time you bought, you went into no open houses?

A common mistake is that the sellers (and the agent) believe that the open house is to sell “their” house. I treat it as an opportunity to sell a house. If they walk in and say “this is the house for me” then that is fine, let’s write it up. In reality they are coming in because the saw a sign & some balloons, and they have no knowledge of the house until they get there. So, if they say “you know this is nice but we really need more bedrooms” or “it’s a lovely house, but it’s not in the price range that we were looking for,” then I need to be able to say, “well then what are you looking for? I’m sure I can find one that suits your needs”. It is a hard pill for some sellers to swallow that I am actually going to try to sell other houses at “their” open, but look at it this way. If I sit four different open houses and at house A and find a buyer for house C, at house C I find a buyer for house B, at house B I find a buyer for house D, and at house D I find a buyer for house A, do you think that those 4 sellers would be happy that they chose an agent who is willing to sit open houses?

The second thing is that many times buyers coming into open house are not at the “buying” stage yet. First they go on to the internet and look from their desk, then they start to venture outside and look at open houses, and then usually they will find an agent, get pre-approved & start making offers. If I can grab them during this in between stage, my odds improve of selling them one of my own listings. Not because I show favoritism, but because I know them so intimately (the more I sit them, the more I get to know them). Also, I can stay in touch with those buyers so when they are ready to make the next step, I will be there to help them. That requires good “long term” follow-up, not just keeping in contact with them until the next open house and then work on the new group.

In 2007 I probably did about 70 open houses. Of those I had 7 deals happen with buyers who came into one of those open houses (10%). Now only 2 actually bought the house that they came in to for the open house. In fact one came in on the first day I had an open house at this one property & I didn’t get him to write the offer until 3 months later on that property. But, you know what? I those sellers were VERY happy that the found a REALTOR who was willing to play those odds and to continue following up with the possible buyers months after the open.

Yes the odds are small, but if your agent is willing to put in the time & effort to play those odds, what is there to loose on the sellers part? And in a market like todays, if there’s a chance that yours could be one of those few, do you really want to eliminate it from your possibilities?