Open House Attendance

Good is relative to the norm for your area, house and the current housing market. What would be considered good in a rural area might be considered severely low volume in an urban area, and what would be low turnout in a seller’s market (when there is high demand for houses and a glut of buyers) might be considered great turnout in a buyer’s market (when there are lots of houses for sale but few buyers).

Key Metrics Influencing Open House Turnout

Local Market Conditions

If your home is in a desirable location and there is a relatively low number of homes for sale in the area, an open house could be attended by dozens of buyers who may be interested in putting in competing offers. If your home is just one of many similar homes for sale in the area, and it’s not priced particularly competitively, far fewer homebuyers may attend your open house.

Price

Homebuyers typically tour homes that are in their price range. There’s typically a larger pool of buyers looking for starter homes at the lower end of the price spectrum and mid-range homes than there are buyers looking for high-end luxury properties. Luxury property open houses may, by their nature, have far fewer attendants.

Marketing Matters

While home marketing is crucial for many aspects of real estate, including getting your home on the map and listing in front of potential buyers, it is foundationally important for open house attendance. How open houses are utilized in the home marketing process is often a key component of a well-thought-out home selling strategy.

For example, at 72SOLD, our real estate agents use marketing and a network of local real estate partners to generate interest for a single open house. We use this well-attended open house event to spark a bidding war for the homes we sell. This often results in home sellers getting a number of offers that are higher than those received by competing homes for sale in the local MLS. Limiting the number of open houses also makes the experience less burdensome and intrusive for the home seller.

Population Density

In a rural or sparsely populated suburban area, an open house may only get between 10 and 15 groups of people throughout the day, while a home for sale in a densely populated urban area where there are a lot of people looking for houses to buy could get 50 or more visitors during an open house event. Either of those scenarios might be considered good for the market conditions and place – even though the actual numbers are starkly different.

Quality of Shoppers Matters More Than Quantity

It’s much better to have a handful of motivated buyers with loan preapproval than dozens of lookie-loos who have no real interest in buying your home. This is another aspect of open houses that can be influenced by the quality and targeting of marketing. It’s important to reach serious home shoppers. Marketing efforts and strategies that minimize the attendance of unserious open house attendees are preferable.

Strategies Real Estate Agents Can Use to Generate Interest for Open Houses

There are a number of marketing methods real estate agents can use to improve attendance at open houses. These methods should, preferably, attract actual buyers, not people who tour open houses as a hobby.

Real estate websites, social media and email marketing are all potential tools to generate interest, but they also cast a wider net than may be desired and could attract people who aren’t qualified homebuyers or who are not ready to put in an offer. The same is true for targeted flyers and direct mail campaigns, which can be expensive to run. 

Professional networking with other agents is a more reliable tool for attracting open house attendees who actually are actively looking for a home to buy. It’s also a more cost-effective method than the other paid marketing strategies.

Is an Open House Worth It?

That depends on your real estate agent’s open house strategy. Having open houses weekend after weekend without generating good, competitive offers is a sign that the agent’s strategy isn’t working.

A good approach to open houses should generate competitive offers after a single event. This also greatly reduces the hassle, inconvenience and security concerns inherent with the open house system.

Our Real Estate Agents Do Open Houses the Right Way

We don’t use a series of open houses for weeks or months on end. Our real estate agents utilize a proven system that includes a single open house event, prior to which we generate interest and instill a sense of urgency and scarcity that makes people who attend the open house more likely to put in bids and compete with each other for the home.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help increase the demand for your home and decrease the hassle of the home selling process, visit us at 72SOLD.com.