What's Open Sunday in Central Ohio?

What's Open Sunday in Columbus?

Best Open House List in Central Ohio

OK maybe I am a bit biased about the open house list on our Central Ohio Real Living website. I've blogged calling it the best open house list in Central Ohio on both of my other blogs, ColumbusBestBlog.com and Discover Columbus (which used to be called Columbus Best Blog) the best thing is kind of habit.

The link above is to the Real Living HER open house site through my Real Living site, MaureenMcCabe.com

Today, Friday January 25, 2008 the Real Living HER open house list says:

"There are 280 Open Houses available" That may go up today, Saturday and Sunday.

There was a national open house website started in Central Ohio a few years back called "What's Open Sunday." The Columbus Business First article said:

Real estate search engine lists Sunday open houses 12-13-2004

"Columbus entrepreneurs John Beckley and Jamie Davis recently launched www.whatsopensunday.com, a Web site where home buyers can preview open houses.

The search engine allows house hunters to choose communities and home features they're looking for among the houses agents list on the site, said Davis, the service's chief information officer. A one-time charge of $17.95 allows agents to include up to eight photos and details on each open house.

The effort had three listings during the weekend of Dec. 4-5, but Davis said momentum gained in coming months could lead to expanding the service in Ohio in 2005 and nationwide by 2008."

The link to the What's Open Sunday site seems to be dead today.

I don't believe it ever got off the ground outside Central Ohio, they weren't the only ones that had the idea.

A site called OhioBiz.com has a listing for What's Open Sunday with this information:

# of Employees: 1 to 4
Annual Est. Revenue: $500,000 - 1 Million

When I first read about What's Open Sunday I spazzed... I did not want to have to pay for open house ads (even just 18 dollars for a property), online but what if it was successful? I emailed the Columbus Business First article to my manager, Tom Holcombe. He (or maybe someone else?) had an idea which I thought was brilliant... if "What's Open Sunday" site became popular, our company , Real Living HER would offer free open house listings on our open house list (the Best Open House list in Columbus.)

My boss asked me if I thought agents at Keller Williams, the local Re/Max offices, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and all of the small local real estate companies would put their open houses on a competitor's website. The Real Living HER webiste's Open House list, even if it was free? I think I wrote something that was the email version of shrugging my shoulders in my reply ... I did not know whether they would or not... remember this was back in 2005? Nope 2004. No Trulia... No Zillow... Everybody and his brother wanted to use real estate content on a site.

It obviously never had to happen. Real Living HER offering free ads on the brokerage open house list online. I used to email my boss weekly updates on how many local open houses the What's Open Sunday site had in Columbus. I don't think it ever got about 30 open houses, but I could be wrong. Sometimes I would lose interest in even checking how many houses were on the What's Open Sunday website. Surprisingly recently a Real Living HER agent was the only one advertising on the What's Open Sunday site, but he had a condo development advertised. I don't believe the What's Open Sunday site ever expanded anywhere outside Central Ohio.

OpenHouse.com

Recently Roberta Murphy a real estate agent with Villa Sotheby's International Realty (a Realogy brokerage?) in the San Diego area shared that Realogy, opened their site to everyone... OpenHouse.com Opening Door to All Brokers

On the OpenHouse.com site:

"OpenHouse.com has approximately 15,000 to 20,000 open house listings in markets across the nation on any given weekend. The easy-to-use site allows homebuyers to see schedules for open houses in their area, view detailed information about homes, print a route planner, request information or a private showing, and sign up for e-mail alerts.

Doing a search with a 50 mile radius from my offices 43085 ZIP code I find 98 open house listings on the Realogy site. Between the Real Living HER site and the OpenHouse.comi site that's a lot of Open Houses for Central Ohio home buyers.

Will the OpenHouse.com site someday beat the Real Living site in number of Open Houses in Central Ohio? Will I post open houses there? How do you shrug your shoulders in a blog?