Buying A Home
lolc
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Are open houses worthwhile?
My realtor had said he doesn't normally do open houses because they almost never bring in serious buyers (but he will do one if we want him to).
I gather that open houses usually end up bringing in nosy neighbors and people just looking for something to do on the weekend.
But I want to sell this house as soon as we can so I want to do anything that would be beneficial for us....
So, has anyone had any luck with open houses? Either on the buying or selling aspect?? Should we have one?
Also what about an agents open house? Queenbone, I think you mentioned that in my last post.... should I ask my realtor about that instead? Or have both a regular open house and an agent open house?
Re: Are open houses worthwhile?
I asked this same question last week. You might want to go through the posts and there should be one called, "do open houses work?" I got a mixture of responses. We had one this past weekend and only had two people show and neither were serious buyers. We also had one the weekend before and only had one show and he was not a serious buyer either.
I guess they can work in some instances for some sellers but in our case since they haven't we are going to give it a rest for awhile.
I 've heard a lot of the same thing, and sure, I think many of the people who come through aren't serious. And no, an open house did not help us out.
BUT - when we were looking, I went to open houses all the time seriously looking at the houses. If I liked any of them, DH and I went back w/ our realtor. We didn't buy a house that I saw as an open house, but that doesn't mean I wasn't serious!
I do think some people take them seriously, but they aren't the huge influx of serious buyers that you may wish they were!
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
This exactly.
H and I are seriously looking to buy right now, and we do make appointments with our realtor to go into things we want to see, but if there are open houses for homes we are interested in on a free weekend then we pop in.
I have noticed (and my realtor has pointed out) that most of the people going through open houses aren't serious buyers, either they are neighbor's being nosy or people that do open houses for fun. But you only need one serious buyer to decide to go through your home right?
I'm not sure if they work (we've been on the market almost 7 months), but I feel the more people that get into the house, the better! Even if they're not serious buyers, they might be able to give some feedback.
We were considering a new build. We had priced it out, negotiated for upgrades, and were ready to sign. The sales rep was off for the weekend, so my husband and I decided to check out an open house that weekend, just out of curiosity. We really were not at all ready to buy. We had 6 months left on our lease at that point.
LOVED the house. We went back two days later to check it out again, and placed an offer that evening.
The inspection turned up a few problems, and the seller was hesitant to make the repairs. While we were waiting to see what was going to happen, we decided to see what else was on the market, just in case the deal fell through. We went to another open house, and again, scheduled another showing to see it. We would have placed an offer on that house if the one we were under contract on had fallen through.
So, yeah, I think they can work. When we were selling, we didn't have any luck with them. Still, why not do everything you can to market your house?
I think it really depends on your market and the price point of your home.
Where I moved to in the midwest - they tend not to do open houses for homes that are not new construction.
Although we decided to build - we chose our builder by going to open houses of their homes. The one potential competition was a home that was 4 years ago that had an open house that we went to on a whim - we ended up going back to see it several times before ultimately deciding to build.
Our home in NJ sold after someone came to an open house.
It's a guessing game but I feel that you should make your home as visible as possible if you want to sell quickly.