Selling a home is perhaps an even more stressful process than buying a home. First of all, youre going to have many real estate agents vying for your listing. Theyre going to try to tell you all the great things theyll do to sell your home. Chances are many agents will try to tell you how much theyll advertise your house in house ads (which weve already dismissed as useless), and theyll also try to convince you by pulling out the old signs from their trunk and promising an open house every weekend until the house sells.
Now, lets see how closely youve been paying attention. Remember "myth #1" how house ads only serve the real estate agents interests? Now, think about an open house. What does it bring into your home? It brings a steady stream of people interested in buying a house not necessarily your house, mind you, but interested in some house in the near future. And as an real estate agent always on the lookout for the next client, it sure is nice to have people practically wave their hands and say, Hey, look at me. Im interested in buying a house and I dont have an agent.
Basically, the open house is another lead-generating tool for real estate agents that requires you to leave your house for a day while complete strangers take an unsupervised tour of your house and possessions. The truth of the matter is less than one of 10,000 people who walk into an open house actually buy the house. It requires a great sacrifice on your part while providing very limited results.
The bottomline: open houses serve their purpose of introducing a home to the market, but the data shows they'll likely not bring your buyer.
Only real estate professionals who are members of NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® may call themselves REALTORS®. All REALTORS® must subscribe to NAR’s strict code of ethics, which is based on honesty, professionalism and the protection of the public.