Open Houses Still A Useful Tool In Apartment Buying
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Realtors spend their Sundays at a host of open houses throughout the city in the hopes that somewhere down the line, someone will buy.
Carol Graham of the Corcoran Group has held three showings at Bay Ridge co-op.
"It's been successful every week," she said. "We have a lot of smart buyers out there and they're paying attention and showing up."
Potential buyer Christie Lee says she's been cruising open houses for the past two months.
"I get to see what's out there," said Lee. "It's a lot easier and there's no time pressure, as in I have to get there by 2 p.m. and there's another appointment at 3 p.m."
Brokers say giving buyers that kind of unhampered time and access is essential.
"I think time is important, especially in today's economy," said Rachel Patrick, an agent with BellTell Lofts. "It's important that they have the time to walk around and actually see things."
Patrick says she sees an average of 15 visitors a day during the six-hour-long open houses at the BellTel Lofts in Downtown Brooklyn. That's a far cry from an open house at one DUMBO loft, where realtors say only two guests took in the view over the course of three and half hours. One might wonder if the $1.4 million price tag puts the apartment out of the reach of typical open house-goers.
A historic brownstone in Boerum Hill got lots of gawking.
"Now certainly some of these people are lookers, you know just curiosity seekers," said executor Jim Kerge. "But I believe there are some serious buyers also."
Although realtors say gone are the days when open houses drew a crowd of buyers ready to engage in a bidding war on the spot, they say they're still seeing a heavy enough flow of traffic to warrant the use of so many hours on the weekend.
"The buyers that are serious and ready to buy, they're still looking," said RE/MAX Metro associate broker Nick Serro. "The ones that really need to buy and really want to buy in a market that I think they can get a little bit of a bargain in."
Even though some brokers say the likelihood of selling a home solely through an open house is low – maybe five percent – they say it's still a necessary tool in their walk-in closet.
"If you don't do open houses, you're not in the business," said Kerge.