Selling our house: open house question

[Barb A.]

We are getting ready to put our house up for sale. I'm not really comfortable with open houses and was just wondering what others think about this. Any opinions?

 

[Chicago526]

I sold my condo in 3 days, so I never had to deal with it. But from what I understand, an open house isn't so much to get a buyer as it is for all the local agents to see your home, so if later they have a client that fits your house, they can say "aha, I've got the perfect place for you". I guess that getting a sale from an open house isn't terribly common (but not unheard of). Ask your agent (if you have one) and maybe they could do an agent's only open house instead. Your agent gets a group of other agents and takes them through the house, hoping they have a client that would be interested in the home.

If house sales in your area are strong, I'd put off an open house for the first, oh say two weeks it's on the market. If it's showing well and/or you get offers, you might not need one at all. If showings are weak, then you can re-consider an open house.

 

[cats mom]

I absolutely understand your concern.

It was a little disconcerting to walk into DS's pre-school the Monday after our OH and have one of the moms come up and tell me they had gone through our house. (She noticed a treasure my DS made for me in pre-school on my nightstand)

I'm never crazy about the fact that you probably get far more curious neighbors coming through than actual sales prospects too.

That said we have had them with the past two houses we sold and both times the people who ended up buying came through on an open house first.
Both cases the people were actively looking, but their agents had screened our house out for one reason or another.

For me I guess it would depend in part on how hot your local market is. If things are moving pretty well I might not bother - but if I really wanted to sell and things were a bit more sluggish I'd do it again.
Of course I HATE having my house on the market so I'm a do whatever it takes and do it quickly kinda gal.

Good Luck

 

[Christine]

Back in the 1980s, my dad was a realtor. In those days, it was like the "kiss of death" to have an open house. It was a clear signal to other agents that this house was "hard to move." I remember those times and you hardly saw too many open houses.

These days, however, it seems that the open houses are more commonplace and don't seem to have the negative connotation with them. Honestly, I just think that people are so busy these days that they almost don't have time for "appointment only" viewings and they enjoy the ability to pop in and see homes on the weekend. I see a LOT of open houses in my area. It seems like open houses are done about a week or two after the house hits the market.

 

[golfgal]

It really depends on your market. We have lived in towns where EVERYONE has open houses and very few people actually look at homes out side of an open house, so if you didn't have an open house, you didn't sell your home. We have lived in other towns where having an open house meant they couldn't sell your house for some reason so in that town you didn't want an open house.

I guess I don't really see a whole lot of difference between having an open house and having people come through with a realtor. I know plenty of people that claim they are looking for a house, use a realtor, and just really want to snoop.

We are selling our house for sale by owner and have had 2 open houses. Our first one had about 10 couples go through, 3 of them were neighbors but they all brought other people they know that are looking for a house. We had a scheduled open house for yesterday and that brought about 14 couples through and since it was raining I think they were all pretty much looking for a house because it isn't the kind of weather to go out in. This past Saturday we had a couple open houses down the road from us so we put up our signs and thought what the heck, we had 6 couple stop by, one couple was very interested so hopefully we hear from them.

Having an open house is a good way to get a lot of people through your house in a short period of time. You only have to clean once for all those people . Take anything really valuable with you if you are worried. Heck, you could even stay in the house and look like interested buyers if you wanted (just take down any photo's that might incriminate you).

 

[Tigger&Belle]

We had a realtor, but we found and bought both of our houses (via our realtor) due to open houses. The first one I'd read about in the open house section of the newspaper and we didn't actually go to the open house, but I drove by the house the following week, liked the house (for some reason the realtor didn't know about the house) and we then took a look, liked it, and bought it. Wouldn't have known about it otherwise.

About the same story with our current house, except we actually went to the open house, then contacted our realtor (different realtor than our first one) and told her about the house. We don't know why she didn't tell us about the house and we bought the house.

So unless we are a total fluke, open houses do sell houses. But they are a pain for sure.

 

[pozey]

Look at it from a buyer's perspective....

Would you buy a house without seeing the inside?

An Open House is a way to have your house "seen" by many people in a short period of time. And it's not like there won't be anyone there. Your realtor will be there. People (usually) don't go to open houses to "snoop".

 

[disykat]

About the snooping - I love to go to open houses to snoop, but I only want to go in empty houses. I would embarassed to go inside an open house that was still being lived in just to peek.

I've never really had an open house. When we sold our last house, we had a realtor's open house on a weekday morning - the first day it went on the market. It sold in less than a week.

 

[palmtreegirl]

I don't like open houses, my friend had one when they sold their house and someone stole all her sons X-box games, about 10 of them.

 

[TheRatPack]

I don't like open houses, my friend had one when they sold their house and someone stole all her sons X-box games, about 10 of them.

Our game system, and all the games that went with it went in to storage the minute our house was on the market. All of the stuff we have to keep out of storage (jewelry....etc) to use still we have in a laundry basket and when we get an open house or call to view the house it goes with us.

I also have a bucket beside the backdoor that I have a few nice towels in, candle and a fresh tart for the warmer. So before we leave we put out fresh towels, light our candles and then use the bucket to do a quick run through on the house. Anything out of place or of value (like handheld games or bills that we've not filed yet) goes in to the bucket to go with us as well.

I really hope that ours sells quickly though, it makes me nervous to have strangers walking through my house. And I know that during an open house it'll be nosy neighbors. Well, those that aren't mad at us for moving LOL

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Our game system, and all the games that went with it went in to storage the minute our house was on the market.

Same here...ours was a "display house". Our house sold in 8 days. Open house or not, all personal stuff should be put up and the house should sparkle.

 

[kstategrad]

Our house has been on the market since 1/14/06. We've had THREE open houses, and so far, no offers have come from them. I am glad that this thread was started, because I was wondering what other peoples' experiences with open houses has been.

We had an open house yesterday, but our realtor said that the newspaper omitted our ad, so there was no advertising for it. Still, we ended up with 4 couples coming through. Our realtor said that one of the couples seemed pretty interested, 2 had very nice comments but said the house was not big enough, and the other was another realtor screening the house for his clients. He wants to host an open house every Sunday this month (except for Easter). We have told him that's fine. The more people who come look, the more chances we have to get a buyer.

I just want this whole ordeal to be over with. I can't believe how stressful it is trying to sell a house!

 

[EthansMom]

With our last home sale, our realtor said that in her experience you get a lot of lookie loos at Open Houses, people who are just looking to see what $X can buy rather than people who are actively looking to purchase a home. Also, if people are actively looking to purchase than they are likely to come view your home during a private viewing if it meets their requirements.

Now, our realtor did encourage us to have a Realtors Only Open House so that other realtors could see the house and encourage their clients to view it.

What worked particularly well for selling our last house was that we completely decluttered, cleaned the house until it sparkled, put the house on the market and left town for a week. We had given our Realtor a couple weeks notice that as soon as we put the house on the market we would be on vacation and we wanted as many people to see the house then as possible. We left the realtor with all of our contact information for questions/offers/etc. We had a nice vacation and didn't have to worry about picking up after the kids or vacuuming every day or getting calls from realtors wanting to show the house as we sat down for dinner. We had an acceptable offer before we went home for vacation. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

 

[safetymom]

I let the agents come through an open house but not for the public. The first person that did come and look bought the house.

I have a lot of computer equipment and stuff and I didn't want extra people getting any ideas about stealing the stuff. I also didn't want my neighbors wandering through the house.