It would also be very hard to fathom that any buyer wouldn’t come back and see the homes that were not having open houses. There are countless agents that don’t waste their Sunday in this activity. I am sure if you are looking in a specific area you are not going to say to yourself “Oh well I guess I will skip that beautiful home down the street that I will probably love if they don’t hold it open next Sunday.”

I suppose you are just seeing this from the seller’s and agent’s perspective. But as buyers starting to look , my wife and I prefer to search the internet to get an idea of the houses that interest us, and then go see any houses that are holding open houses. If this avenue were not available then we would need to find a broker and waste his or her time viewing many more houses in order to get a feel for houses in my price range.

I think there are many buyers like us that need to see a number of homes before making an offer. This does not means we are not committed or not qualified to buy. It is just part of the process.

So you can claim that open houses are a waste of time for a seller, but certainly not for buyers, or the selling process in general. It helps buyer’s understand what they want and can afford, and gets them get closer to knowing what house that they will make an offer on. Doesn’t that help agents and sellers?

In regards to Realtors being lazy because of MLS, isn’t it your Realtor who is not out showing you these homes on a Sunday? I would say there is far more laziness in that.

I have to say that I am looking at houses and I always look at open houses. If I see what I like I call my realtor to take me back a second time. I am ready to make an offer on a house I did see at a open house. Same with my friend who is looking. We like to look online to see all the open houses listed for Sundays and we go looking. This saves us having to schedule and follow our realtor around, and if we go, we go and if not oh well. Its too bad for all those houses that did not hold open houses ..we may have missed a couple good ones. I am on Facebook and a lot of people I know look that way…look online for the open house schedule and then view the houses. I think realtors are getting way too lazy with the internet. All I hear is MLS MLS MLS. They’ve taken the sales out of selling homes. My house has had 3 open houses and we had up to 10 people at each. Some coming back a second time.

I don’t know too many REAL buyers who are afraid or reluctant to see a home with an appointment.

Many, many properties that we have advertised in our real estate magazines or on MA4salebyowner.com have sold as a DIRECT RESULT of an Open House. That said, there are ways to maximize on the event that we share with our sellers – when to hold them, how long to hold them, why to hold them, how to invite others to them, how to keep your valuables safe, and how to create competition. We’ve even done Open House Weekends where private sellers offer to share info. with others, creating neighborhood events.

I’ve seen agents pull OPEN HOUSE signs out their trunk 15 minutes after their open house was to start and even tell sellers they’d only do a one-hour open because they wanted to do another one the same day across town. Agents who sit in the kitchen alone during an open, while allowing visitors to roam the house isn’t my idea of protecting personal property. We suggest to sellers that they have a couple of friends come over and browse areas so that their is always activity going on. In ten years of marketing assistance, we’ve not had safety incident arise from an open house or private showing. Very thankful.

I will ask you the same thing I ask everyone else….do you really believe that if the open house was not held someone that was really interested in the home would not just call to schedule an appointment? Open houses are a waste of time for a home seller. Are they a benefit to an agent? Yes an agent can pick up a potential client. This is why Realtors are willing to waste a Sunday afternoon doing something that more often than not is very unproductive for selling the home they are sitting in.