Simon, For you this is a toned down rant on open houses, but I love all the info you give me to keep me from having customers try to get me to work on the Lords day for a completely meaningless purpose.

Hugh - I'm glad it works for you on any level. The thing to remember is that LESS THAN 1% of buyers find their home through open house activity.

Simon - Statistics don't lie. They certainly can be manipulated. The correct empirical statistic is that less than 1% of the people that purchased a home (of those that were sampled by the NAR) did so through an open house. There is no data regarding For Sale By Owners that hold open houses. Open house activity is a rather broad add-on to your statement. You have no conclusive evidence to support that statement. What do you consider "open house" activity?

Regarding strangers wandering through a home and stealing something, I can not find any surveys regarding this fact. The implication certainly pushes the fear button. It overlooks that having your house on the market and accessible through a lock-box also puts your personal property at risk.

In the end, if only one in one hundred sells because of the open house, that is one more out of one hundred that may sell if no one holds an open house. How do you want to determine who the ninety nine are and how should we advise the one seller that will sell that we won't hold his home open?

I personally believe that open houses are one available tool in marketing property. Some buyers like to get the feel of a home (indicated by the fact that one in one hundred is successful). The statistics do not reveal the number of homes that are sold because a buyer fell in love with a floor plan and later bought a similar house. I have heard the comment while showing homes "I love this floor-plan, we saw it a couple weeks ago at an open house."

Open houses have a synergistic impact on one another. One open may not sell that specific home, but it may increase the odds on a neighbors home. The neighbors open may sell yours. The homes are the commodity that buyers are reviewing. It is like a "you scratch my back and I will scratch yours".

It is pure folly to impugn the benefits of open houses based on personal beliefs.

John - you and I disagree about the value of the system, but don't you find it in the least bit interesting that when Realtor Magazine talks about the secrets of an open house it does not mention anywhere anything about selling the actual home? It does however go into intricate detail about how it benefits the Realtor. As for theft - I have covered that in another blog some time ago.

I DO open houses.  And sometimes I don't .  I DO explain to my sellers the in's and out's of open houses, the stats and the real reason that agents hold open houses (mostly to find buyers who have not hired an agent yet).

I DO get aggrivated with a certain company who starts with W and loves YELLOW who can not possibly telling the truth when their stats are so different from the stats of REALTORS with other companies.  I also have SEEN how that company holds an open (they put the signs up and then leave a note on the door to call the agent who is out showing property or something like that and they will come back and open the house).

Is that a J-mac sighting above?

Simon,

I agree with you 100%!  As for using the open to obtain new buyer / seller prospects... as long as the agent is up front and honest with the seller of the open house about the agent's agenda, I think it is okay.  However, if the agent leads the seller (or even "allows" the seller to believe he is holding the open house for the seller's benefit, I find that to be dishonest (not a quality I look for in anyone).

The danger of 'theft' or of a thief "casing" the property for a later hit is not a scare tactic - it is a very real possibility and a very real LIABILITY.

Besides, we get FAR more prospects via creative marketing than the agents we know who hold open houses - in fact, in our market it is common for an open house to have zero visitors or only one or two neighbors. 

We consider 'most' open houses to be a waste of the agent's time and resources and a liability for the agent AND the homeowner as well.

Ron - yes that was a J-Mac sighting! As long as people are honest, I have no problem.

Tim and Susan - it's amazing that the "lie" of "this will sell your home" is allowed to continue when we all know (yes I do know there are markets where this is not true, but they are getting fewer and fewer) the truth.

I hate to do opens. But I have found a couple of buyer this way.

If every open house produced at least one of the following, I would hold an open house EVERY DAY:

1. Sell the house being held open
2. Obtain one new buyer prospect
3. Obtain one new seller prospect

Heck, if I knew I could get the results of even ONE of the above at every THIRD open house then I would hold one every day. 

The fact is that the results of open houses are far lower than that.  It then becomes a matter of TIME MANAGEMENT and FINANCIAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT.  Every now and then I will talk to an agent who swears up and down that they get great results from open houses... the question becomes, "Then why don't you hold them more often?" 

Not one agent who has made the 'claim' that they are effective has been able to show me verifiable data to prove their effectiveness.  IF they are truly effective then I cannot imagine any reason to avoid holding them as often as humanly possible. 

We used to hold open houses but after hundreds of dollars and man hours spent, the ROI was pitiful!

I have to disagee with most of you in here on the
Open House issue....

I have held Open Houses and even have 10 lawn
signs for that purpose alone...4 of them are BIG signs .......

I get no less than 10 people of every Open House I hold...
I advertize in local weekly papers and get a GREAT response.. 
I have even had people who had seen the listing in Realtor.com
come to one of my Open Houses....

There are buyers AND sellers waiting to be obtained through this
marketing tactic....

I have gotten several!!

I guess it is NOT
for everyone...

Just like
postcards..

And door
knocking..

=-)

In commercial real estate there are, from time to time, "open houses" of commercial listings.  I honestly believe that these events are very important to getting the building on the map for other commercial agents.  The events are also very expensive.  There is catering, entertainment, and door prizes that range from 60 inch plasma televisions to trips for 2 to Cabo San Lucas.  Not to mention an open bar and tons of promotional material.  After it is all said and done, those are the properties I remember most vividly when I'm representing a tenant/buyer.

Interesting comments - particularly from Patrick. Commercial ones sound like fun!

My question is, regardless of the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of Opens, is anyone willing to say a house will not sell without one?  Lots of good arguments on how to generate additional business for agents through opens, but at the end of the day, will a well priced house *not* sell without one?  I doubt it.

Thanks for the REALTOR mag article...great ammo for not doing them - see, even NAR admits they are not for YOUR benefit, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, they are for mine. 

Hows this???

There is usually a 1/100 response to postcard
marketing too... does that mean it is worthless?

To each their own.....

Ya gotta pick what
works for YOU..

=-)