Open House = Waste of Time, Most of the Time
Are Open Houses becoming Ineffective and Outdated? Will they become Extinct? Are there times when an Open House is Beneficial to a Seller? Can a Real Estate Agent gain Buyers (or Sellers) by holding Open House?
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If you went on a deep sea fishing trip aboard a high-tech vessel with a state of the art fish finder what do you think would be the most effective way to spend your day finding the fish?
A) Just stopping at various locations, dropping in your fishing line, and hoping some fish are there.
OR
B) Use the fish finder to locate the fish and then drop your line.
All I can say is that any commercial fisherman that uses option A is probably out of business.
Granted you can definitely get lucky once in a while with option A, but why spend all that time and energy when the results cannot be scientifically duplicated.
Open houses are similar. They are becoming more ineffective, outdated, and eventually will become extinct.
Let me explain why:
1. Technology - Most buyers go to the internet first. They don't need to drive around to find open houses. Most of the time buyers attending open houses are doing so because their agents are busy getting more leads while you are wasting your time showing their clients property.
2. Safety - Lets face it, the world isn't becoming a safer place. In fact, many criminals use open houses to stage potential victims.
3. Evolution - Open houses were great when there was no internet, and many agents are still using outdated techniques. As the demographics of real estate professionals, buyers, and sellers change those old techniques will become less and less common.
4. Sellers - It is not in their best interests. An open house is not needed to sell a home. In other words, the house won't not sell because you don't have an open house and it is becoming more unsafe.
Yes there are certain instances to have an open house in which it is beneficial to the sellers. Those circumstances change with market conditions and the particulars of the transaction.
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