Do open houses sell homes?

I have read on the internet that realtors basically use open houses to grow their client base. I can see this as true as they all want you to fillout a sign-in sheet. Anyway I was watching some house show on HGTV and the dude had an open house and got 13 offers! This was in CA. I thought that had to be

Anyway, has anyone held an openhouse and was it worth it?

 

If you have a desirable property and don't mind people coming through your home on a sunday, open house could be very effective. In this market, if it's a nice home and well priced, it could sell in a weekend.

 

13 offers is no bullshit. I work with realtors everyday and I am realtor myself. In some areas in FL, houses get 20 offers on one day.

 

I've started going to open houses to see whats around and what costs are per area in LA. Its a good way to see what the market is doing where.

And I have no doubts people come through and make instant offers.

 

i would say its worth it

 

If your house is overpriced and/or you're not working with a realtor, then having an open house is a good way to get people just driving by who aren't really serious to look at your house. If you ARE working with a good realtor and your house is priced right, then open houses are useless.

 

 

Now that I have fully closed on my real estate transactions, I thought I would share my open house experience.

We had 5 open houses. 2 of them were complete disasters.
1 was held on a holiday and no one showed.
1 the Realtor showed up a half hour late and had to leave early because of a family emergency.

So in reality we had 3 open houses. I found that open houses bring a lot of unqualified or not serious buyers. We received 2 low ball offers in which my counter offer was no counter offer. We then had a few other knuckleheads show up. One lady was going to put an offer in without even talking to her fiance. She had an appointment with her Realtor to write an offer and then mysteriously had a work emergency and then never rescheduled. Gee, wonder what happened there. One guy liked the house and dragged his gf to the house twice afterwards. Turns out he wasn't prequalified and his gf wouldn't let him buy it anyway.

We eventually sold to someone that visited in a private showing with her Realtor.

It took 8 weeks to get an offer that I liked. I settled for a little less than I was hoping for but it was good enough. My wife forced my hand when she decided that we found the house we were going to buy before we had ours sold.

I think we would have sold faster but the Realtors were getting crazy with the prices of the townhouses in my development. It was definitely overpriced but she thought she could get it. Turns out she was wrong.

Perhaps in markets where people show up to open houses with their checkbooks in their hands I would do an open house again. But in the area I live, no way.

 

Could just be timing of the whole thing, since the market appears to be deflating in many markets.

 

If a house gets 12 offers in one day, it just shows that it was priced too low to start with...

 

When my parents were about to put my house on the market, my dad was adoment about not having an open house becuase he felt that the open house was a means for the neighbors to come in and compare their house to yours. I suggest advertising your hose as "By Appointment Only" because you know that the people are really interested in your house and it will not waste your time

On a side note, around my area, there have been a lot of thefts during Open Houses. Theifs scout out the rich homes and then go in as a prospective buyer and while walking around the house unspervised, they are pocketing the home owners jewelry and other items.

 

Yeah they're risky for the above reasons. However all the open houses I went to this past spring got offers.