Open House

It is true that some homes sell by open house. In many cases however it is not worth the cleaning, disruption and packing up the kids for the afternoon to stage the event.

The reason, for the most part, is that serious buyers are not waiting around until Sunday to see what they can buy. To illustrate, suppose a buyer enters the market on a Monday since his or her own home just sold, or for some other critically important reason. If their own agent is not prepared to show them homes immediately, there are numerous others who will. In fact, most homes they will view may not ever be on open house. Even new listings often sell before the weekend.

There is a strong case for open house in two areas however. Firstly, some buyers though few, do not have an agent and perform their own home search (transferees and first time home buyers for example). Secondly, some serious buyers will view homes on open house with criteria outside the instruction given their agent.

For their part, open houses mostly serve consumers who may become serious buyers. Virtual home tours in addition to reaching a multitude of Internet empowered consumers provide a hassle-free alternative to the traditional open house.

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By Wayne Haroutunian
wayne@realestateguy.ca  •  www.realestateguy.ca

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Wayne Haroutunians' articles appear in many national real estate publications