Open houses still play role in real estate market
By Patricia Anstett
Knight Ridder News Service
DETROIT — The aroma of freshly baked cookies fills the kitchen. Free, traffic-light-yellow chip clips and potholders with Howard Genser's slogan, "I will sell your house," await serious, and not-so-serious, buyers.
Fortunately for Genser, the Detroit Lions are playing a mid-Sunday afternoon game — enough time for people to view the Oak Park, Mich., home he is showing and still watch the game. It may seem hard to believe, given the team's track record, but the Lions do affect the real estate business.
Whether an open house draws two or 10, Genser considers it part of his job to conduct open houses for his clients.
"It's part of the service of a full-time, full-service Realtor," said Genser, a Century 21 Town & Country agent. "It gives more exposure to the seller. And it gives more people an opportunity to see a house."
But elsewhere, the open house no longer is a given in the marketing strategy.
On the plus side, open houses create foot traffic, important particularly in a slower market, and give sellers feedback relayed by hosting real estate agents.
The downside: Safety issues and nosy neighbors who parade through open houses solely to check out a home owners' improvements and to assess their own homes for possible sale.
Virtual home tours on the Internet also make the open house less of a necessity in areas populated with residents having higher education and income levels.
Violet Johnson, a real estate agent with Satisfaction, a Southfield, Mich., real estate company, estimates that she conducts an open house only 5 percent of the time. "I do, when I have a nice house in a nice area," she said. "I don't like to hold them for homes when people are still living in them. I don't want to have to watch their stuff."
Michael Carolan, a licensed real estate broker with RE/MAX Blue Skies of Shelby Township, said he almost never holds open houses because of crime concerns and a preference to screen viewers first before showing them a home. The corporate office, RE/MAX International, conducted the first of what is expected to be several safety awareness training seminars this fall.
"Most of us have read or heard about the recent rash of crimes against real estate agents and/or their clients," said Margaret Kelly, corporate president, in a statement explaining the seminar. "In the busy world of real estate, it is so easy to brush such news aside or say to ourselves — 'That won't happen in this town.' Well, guess what — it has! And, these kinds of crimes could happen again at any time, in any town or city."
Yet, owners selling their homes often find the open house the best way to generate interest, along with signs and newspaper ads.
In fact, the more open houses, the better, these home owners say.
"We have them every time we know we'll be at home for a while," said Jeff Lanier, who hopes to sell his Oak Park home by April, when he and his wife will move into their new home in Rochester. He plasters his 11 Mile and Coolidge neighborhood with signs the days of his open houses.
Roger Van Tassel has conducted three open houses during the past two months for his home in the Green Acres subdivision of Detroit.
Coached by tips from the Web site www.forsalebyowner.com, Tassel readied his home for an open house with navy bean soup simmering in the kitchen and a fire giving the stylish, immaculate home an inviting touch.
Realtors committed to open houses vary in how often they offer them on a home.
"There are no strict rules," said Lesley Gore, Realtor associate, with Real Estate One's Farmington Hills office. "Sometimes we hold them immediately; other times, we wait to see the interest."
Her partner, Steve Cash, said that in his 28 years in the business, he's only sold three homes from an open house. He and Gore convinced the owners to hold an open house when it didn't sell for more than a month.
A good open house, agents say, typically draws five to 10 people.
