Questions about showings and open houses

The problem is how to weed out those who attend for "fun", as many on this board do. Perhaps if you charged $10 admission ($5 for the dogs) that would work. Serious shoppers would pay up.

See, that's the problem. How do you weed out the tourists without being obnoxious and turning off legitimate interested parties?

why bother? if 50 people have seen your place and there is no offer, its either because all 50 were wasting your time or....

Mahalia - you really can't. But you should also remember that the "tourist" might actually turn out to be a buyer.

All those fancy 5th avenue stores have kind of learned the same thing - don't judge the customer by the clothing.

Years and years ago showed an expensive loft to a young woman who looked as if she slept in the street- seriously - turned out her father was the biggest casino owner in South Africa (and now a major player in the US), who flew in on his private jet to look at the apartment.

Right! That's what I told my broker: "it's been 3 whole days! How come we don't have 5 offers already?"

seriously...if you have had 50 viewings and no offer, you need to consider what's going on. not even a so called low ball is odd.

Would it turn off serious people to be asked to come to the open house rather than have a private showing on Friday?
I realize 10 people would give me 11 different answers, but is there a consensus?

First, chill. Even if someone were seriously interested, many people mull over an offer for a few days. I "mulled" for almost 2 weeks after I saw the place I purchased.

Second, be glad you have traffic. Forget culling the tourists from the serious buyers. You accomodate everyone. You keep your place sparkling clean and neat and be ready to show at the drop of the hat. Selling in this market means you do everything you possibly can. A lot of traffic? Suck it up and be very grateful, and I say that with love.

Let the process unfold. Even a tourist may have friends who are interested. Be nice to everyone (well, you broker should if you have one--you should be nowhere around during showings) and your offer(s) will come.

If it bothers you to have so many private showings, why not set one or two days a week for that, rather than any day? Though this might turn some people off.

Also, CC has a point - maybe ask your broker what he/she thinks the problem is. Have you cleared out your closets so they look almost empty? Taken a lot of the personal pictures/tchotches away? Etc.,etc.

The smell of baking cookies is always good. (do they sell that in a spray?)

Ok, thanks Kylewest for the realty check. We have a very nice, very professional and very hard-working broker, because I know myself enough to know I would suck as a broker. You are right, of course.

Average days on market in the third quarter (time between last price change and contract) was 164 days as Miller Samuel saw it. Relax...you've got at least 5 more months of fun ahead of you....

OK, thanks for talking me off the ledge. Back to my lavender wipes to prep for the 5pm show.

The only thing I actually liked about selling my place was how nice it looked after I threw away half of what I owned to purge the apartment of clutter and that it was never so clean as it was during the weeks of showings. Enjoy that you now have a toilet that gets cleaned twice a day!

All the advice here so far is good, but I still think it would be reasonable to work out with your broker a scheduling framework for those who don't want to come to the open house. That way, you'd have a few evenings to yourself and/or guests, and a few days when you don't need to dust the ceiling before heading off to work.

As much as you don't want to be a prima donna, and with the understanding that it's not worthwhile to screen out the Lookie Lous, it remains the case that anyone with a serious interest in finding the right place will wait a couple of days to see/revisit yours ... otherwise you can be nearly certain that they're not your customers anyway.

in a rational world i would agree but so much of buying is emotional. unless you have a one of a kind place, I would vote for inconvenience over possibly missing a buyer. remember what woody allen said.

still wondering about no one even coming forward with the lowball. i agree that patience is important but a little overthinking at the beginning can't hurt.

Having spent several months looking for an apartment, I love open houses. It's so much easier than working through brokers to get to see the apartment initially. That being said, I wouldn't expect an apartment to have an open house more than once or twice a month. There's one apartment that we've been keeping our eye on which has an open house almost every Sunday and I wonder how the seller can get the broker to do this for them every weekend. For most people, it's difficult to see an apartment during work hours so having your apartment available on weekends should produce the mosr foot traffic. Just a personal question, why do brokers always want so much personal information when you go to an open house-telephone numbers, email addresses, etc. I always think that if someone is interested, they;ll get in touch with you to see the apartment again.

because they're trying to develop leads. which they're then too busy to follow up on. (just a little humor)

lobster - I think they are also making sure they make claim to a commission - you're on their list, they get at least 1/2

ph41, if they are the broker for the seller, wouldn't they be entitled to the commission anyway?

You can go half-way on the open house route and still cut down on showing time. A lot of "showing time" is actually transit time and waiting time (no one ever shows up on the second - even the broker). What I've done in the past is take the first request for a given day and allot a 2 our time frame around it. Let's say someone wants to schedule an appointment. The broker calls and I'll be "I'm showing it tomorrow at 5PM, so if you wanted to do 5:15 or 4:45 I could do that." They take the 5:15, so the next person gets "I'm showing at 5 and 5:15 tomorrow, would you like 4:45 or 5:30?". You can end up giving lots of people the individual showings they want without spending all day every day on it. With 2 hours you can accommodate 8 showings (if people show up late, it's on them that someone else is looking at the same time as they are - but even then it's only 2 people which you should be able to handle considering they will be with their brokers as opposed to an open house).

If THEY can't make any of your allotted time slots, then tell them "Well, you can always have your buyer come to my open house on Sunday between 1 and 3".

The broker will keep a list of individuals who were introduced to the apartment during the listing period. Most listing agreements provide that the listing broker is entitled to receive a commission even after the agreement lapses (six months?) if the buyer was "introduced" to the property during the listing.

Put you name on the sign in sheet.......you've been "introduced".

Personally, as a past Seller, I don't have a problem with this aspect of an exclusive listing agreement. And as a Buyer, you're free to sign in as Snow White and the Dwarf so long as you're willing to take the chance that the broker is on the ball enough to see how you sign in.....

Thanks mjsalisb. That really clears it up for me. I've wondered why the brokers got so upset if you didn't want to share your personal information. I've found that if you list your phone number or email, then you get many follow-up calls or messages. But now I understand why they need the info to claim a part of the commission.

Don't mention it...and, of course, having your cell phone number and email address to "mine" as a propect on the buy side is of real value to listing brokers as well....as noted above.

But as a side note, I am a bit disappointed in a certain CitiHabitats associate broker whose OH I attended last Sunday and who has not called/emailed me as a prospect.

I'm looking at you, Caroline.....

"The broker will keep a list of individuals who were introduced to the apartment during the listing period. Most listing agreements provide that the listing broker is entitled to receive a commission even after the agreement lapses (six months?) if the buyer was "introduced" to the property during the listing."

But most that I have seen limit the number. It can't be 10,000, so they can't throw everyone who has seen the place on the list.