When you decide to sell your house, there is a good chance that your real estate agent will suggest that you host an open house. As a result, prospective buyers can come to the home and check it out. Although this is a popular marketing strategy for selling a home, there are drawbacks to an open house. Before you agree to schedule an open house, consider the following drawbacks.
Drawbacks of an Open House
Chances of a Sale are Slim
The percentage of homes that sell due to an open house is quite low. In fact, it’s no more than about two percent. So, it may not be worth opening up your house and hosting people all day long when there is a good chance that nothing will come of it. You are likely better off finding other ways to market your home to the public. And, in the end, rely more on private showings.
Open Houses Attract Unqualified Buyers
In most cases, home buyers need to be prequalified from a mortgage lender before they can buy a house. The prequalification gives the maximum amount of money the lender is willing to give the buyer. It lets the buyer know how much can be spent on a house. When you host an open house, anyone off the street can come in. So, it is likely that people who are not prequalified for a mortgage will come in to look at the house. You will also attract people who are prequalified but do not for enough money to afford your house.
Open Houses Attract Non-Home Buyers
When you host an open house, you are opening your house up to the public. Therefore, you have to accept that anyone can come in at any time. You will get some serious lookers. But you will also attract people who are not serious home buyers. You will almost certainly have to welcome in nosy neighbors. They are curious about what the inside of your house looks like or are trying to catch a glimpse of how you live. You will also get a good number of people who are not in the market to buy a house. They are simply looking for a way to kill time and entertain themselves for a little while.
Open Houses are Open to Seller Competition
Since you cannot turn anyone away at an open house, you can easily let in other people who are also selling their homes without realizing it. Competitors can come in to check out what you are doing with your house so they can make a better plan to compete with you. If you are in a similar neighborhood and have a similar home to sell, you can unintentionally give your competition a leg up on you simply by hosting an open house.
Security Issues
Any time you open your house up to strangers, you put yourself at a security risk. Open houses allow criminals to come in and check the house to see what you have that is worth stealing. It’s the perfect opportunity for them to plan out their crime. Hosting an open house also opens your house up to people who will take your personal items right out from under your nose. It’s easy for someone with sticky fingers to pick up small items like jewelry or electronic equipment and hide them in their pockets without anyone noticing until it’s too late. Since there will have been many people in and out of your house, it will be next to impossible to determine who the perpetrator was.
Lack of One-on-One Attention
During an open house, many people will be walking through the house, often at the same time. However, a real estate agent can only give full attention to one prospective buyer at a time. The other interested parties will not get the attention they deserve. So, there will be a lot of missed opportunities for selling your house. This equates to taking a longer time to sell your house than is really necessary.
Agents May Have Ulterior Motives for Open Houses
Although many real estate agents suggest open houses as a legitimate way to help their clients sell their houses, there is a fair number of them who use it as a means to their own end. Some agents use open houses as a way to build up their client lists. Every visitor who comes into your home during an open house is a potential customer for the agent. Even nosy neighbors and people who are not qualified to buy your house can easily become clients of your agent in the future. So, no matter how altruistic your agent’s suggestion to hold an open house may seem, the likelihood is that he or she is simply looking for new clients.
If you do not want to go through the hassle of holding open houses that most likely will not result in the sale of your house, you have an alternative. You can sell your house for cash. And thus avoid all the negative aspects of the open house altogether. Ben Buys Indy Houses will buy your house as-is and offer you a fair price for it. The entire process will be done in less than one month. You can move on with cash in your pocket and a smile on your face. Click here to see testimonials by happy customers.
