Ask a dozen real estate agents what their thoughts are on the effectiveness, or importanced, of open houses for sellers and you will likely get about a dozen different opnions. Opinions from agents on open houses include: open houses are vital to properly exposing the listing to the market; they are good practice for newer agents; they are a great opportunity to meet potentital buyer clients; they are done to appease a seller; they are a security risk to the homeowner.
So, do open houses sell homes? Are open houses necessary to sell your home?
Personally, I don’t believe open houses are necessary to properly expose a seller’s home to the market, but instead gives easy access to nosy neighbors, people looking for remodeling ideas as well as those folks that just love filling their Sunday afternoon looking and dreaming about homes. My thought is, if a buyer is genuinely interested in your home, particularly in a low-inventory market like we are in, they will do whatever it takes to get an appointment to look at the home. in addition, given that we are talking about a big-ticket item, no one is likely to “impulse-buy” a home like they might some new gizmo or gadget they see while wandering through Costco.
Whatever the reason is though, open houses are fairly popular, particularly in St Charles.
I just did some quick stats to see how many open houses are currently scheduled for this weekend by county. As my list below shows (by the way, you can click on the links below to go to a live, interactive map showing all the open houses this weekend) 22% of the active listings in St Charles County have an open house scheduled in the next 7 days. For the St Louis Metro area as a a whole (the St Louis MSA), 13% of the active listings have an open house scheduled in the coming 7 days.
Open Houses Scheudled During The Next 7 Days By County
(Click on County name to see live, interactive map showing all the open houses this weekend)
