The Open House: For Your Home or Your Agent?

You cleaned your home to perfection, baked cookies and took your family away for the afternoon while your real estate agent hosted an open house at your home. Although she showed you a list of more than twenty attendees you received no offers. What went wrong?

Nothing, if it went according to plan it was a smashing success...for your agent. In three to five hours your agent got twenty names of people who may want to list their homes, or who may be in the market to buy one in your neighborhood.

One common belief among homeowners is that the purpose of an open house is purely to sell that house. Chuck Graham of AtHomeCharlotte.com reports that only 1% of all homes sold are done so through an open house.

Open houses serve three purposes. Yes, they do show your home to prospective buyers but that is the least productive use of the day. Open houses:

1.) Attract neighbors who may simply be curious about your home or may want to sell their own real estate. It is a fact that when one home in a neighborhood goes on the market it is usually followed by several more. Your neighbors will probably use the time alone with your realtor (owners are usually not present during the showing) to ask questions about the value of their own home without having to schedule a listing appointment. Some will attend just to look at your decorating theme. Your agent will call your neighbors before and after the open house to drum up business. Some will even enlist your help with that!

2.) Bring people from other areas that may be interested in selling their homes soon. Others, who wonder about life in your neighborhood, will visit to see your home and find out if they feel comfortable with the kind of people in attendance. Your agent will ask if there is a home on the market in their neighborhood that they would like to see, or if they are interested in listing their own home. Often people who visit open houses don't even know they are thinking of listing their home until the agent suggests it. Some listings are done on the spot.

3.) Train new agents to show homes. Many times a broker will insist that new agents host open houses on their own listings AND the listings of other agents in their office to help them feel more at ease showing homes and to learn how to deal with new customers without the pressure of actually selling the house. The agent will try to sell the home, and if the home does sell, it's a bonus!

The names of the open house attendees will sometimes go onto a mailing list and your agent's broker will send them advertisements. Agents will more than likely follow up with all attendees by phone within a week of the open house.

According to the 2006 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 7% of all buyers found their agent by visiting an open house. Name recognition though advertisement of your open house and signage was not gauged in the study.

Better ways to help your agent sell your property are to carefully read your Multiple Listing Service posting for omissions and mistakes(85% of home sold were found though an MLS), make signs very visible (63% were found through signs), encourage advertisement in newspapers (55%) that include internet advertising (80%) with the price of the ad.