What are the challenges with holding an Open House?

Question

I'm curious to hear from the Realtors out there, what are your challenges and frustrations with holding an open house for your clients? Is it the prep, the set up, the waiting? Let's hear the good, the bad and the ugly.

Qulia Brunson · Answer

I love open houses! My only issue with open houses is safety. Every city or every town may not have safety issues but you can never be too sure these days. I try to take precaution no matter what neighborhood I'm in.

Other than that open houses are efficient for realtors as this helps build your database. Everyone that comes to the open house is not going to like the house but this is your chance to capture their information and get permission to build a professional relationship with them.

David Hunter · Answer

We always told all of our sellers that open houses were to pick up buyers and that's why agents do them.

I sold one house in 6.5 years through an open house.  It's rare, but it does happen.

Otherwise, you should be able to pick up some buyers.

Jeff Rabinowitz · Answer

Be honest. The open house is not for the seller it is for the agent. Very few homes are sold through open houses unless they are planned as events and almost nobody does this. (I do know one local agent who is very successful with this strategy but he plans it well and spends some money to make sure his open houses are events.) If you are not making the open house an event you are inconveniencing your seller and putting their belongings at some risk, primarily, so you may get another buyer referral.

Darlena Jones · Answer

Upsides:  Exposure.  We do open houses but don't expect any actual buyers to show up.  We also hold broker's opens which I highly recommend.

Downsides to open houses:  You need to make sure that you have your carpet protected (put down the sticky plastic).  You need to get those little blue bootie things and make people wear them (or they can take their shoes off).  You need to make sure that everything is secured (we've lost a ton of those crank knobs for casement windows over the years).  You need to always remember that most, if not all, of these folks are just out to look around.  Very few are true buyers.

Greg H. · Answer

Most important downside.............  I miss football games

Roman Pak · Answer

If you could change anything about the Open House process, what would it be?

Mindy Jensen · Answer

@Roman Pak, I have read statistics that say open houses lead to sales between 4 and 10% of the time. I would believe it to be closer to 4%. But there is an agent in my office who SWEARS by them for generating leads and offers to host open houses for any of the other agents in our office.

Roman Pak · Answer

So it sounds like what most of you are saying is that open houses are somewhat tedious, but necessary for exposure although they don't bring much value in the way of making the sale with an open house.

David Zamarron · Answer

Open Houses can be effective if a few factors are present.  The property should be in an area that will generate visitors.  It should be accessable by foot and by vehicle.  It should be a competitively priced listing where you're asking yourself:  "Why isn't this property selling?"  Sometimes the added exposure of an open house will bring forth a buyer. Lastly, consider a common by-product of open houses:  visitors may not be interested in the property but you can gain them as a buying client to locate another property.  The whole effort of an open house is a crap shoot even with all these factors in place, but it's a numbers game.  The more you do, the better the odds you will pick up business.

What are the challenges with holding an Open House?

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