Cooling Market Lifts Lid On Old Debate

Open Houses See a Resurgence, But Their Effectiveness in Luring Serious Buyers Remains in Question

Silver Spring residents Mike and Susan Heney are becoming old pros at going to open houses.

Over the past three weekends, the couple have trooped to more than a dozen, 5-year-old in tow, venturing from Four Corners to Wheaton to Kensington to Bethesda. They have a strategy each Sunday, mapping out the itinerary from listings e-mailed by their real estate agent, as well as from newspaper ads and real estate Web sites.

The schedule is brisk because the window of opportunity generally runs from only 1 to 4 p.m. And they have to allow time for ice cream breaks.

"The problem with just depending on Web sites or photos is that you can't get a real sense of scale. In the photos, the yards look bigger than they are and the houses look bigger than they are," said Mike Heney, a NASA contractor.

The cooling market for home sales means they have plenty to look at -- more houses are for sale, and a growing proportion of home sellers are turning to open houses to hawk them. But there's a long-running debate over how effective inviting all comers is in delivering sales. Delivering neighbors as "lookie loos," yes. Delivering possible clients for the agents sitting at the houses, yes. But generating actual sales? Not so reliable, say some.

The Heneys, for instance, aren't exactly shopping for a house when they go to open houses. They're comparing what's on the market to a property they "ran into" at a yard sale and say they love. They expect it to be for sale soon.

They could arrange for their real estate agent to show houses to them privately, but they say they don't want to waste her time. So they spend Sunday afternoons wandering through rooms and checking out closet space, in the hope of finding an even more perfect house.

The jump in open houses reflects how much the market has changed in recent months. Last spring, demand was so high that sellers didn't have to do anything but mention in passing to a neighbor that they were thinking of moving before buyers started lining up outside. Now, in what agents say is a return to a more normal market, sellers are using a variety of marketing tools, including not only open houses but also newspaper ads, yard signs and Web site listings. Agents also work hard to get their listings on the weekly caravan tours held for brokers.

"We're seeing a lot of resurgence of the stuff that had gone away" when the market was hot, including "the return of open houses," contingencies and inspections, said Amy Ritsko-Warren, communications director for the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors.

Houses in some neighborhoods will draw visitors and multiple bids no matter what the market because of the schools, nearby employment opportunities, mass-transit access or community cachet. But even the toniest corners are seeing changes, agents and brokers say.

"Last week 15 couples or families come through our open houses as an average," said Dottie Crago Faust, a broker with Long & Foster Real Estate's Bethesda Avenue office, which has about 120 agents who list houses all around the region. But some drew as many as 40, 50 and 70 visitors, she said.

Virtual tours and Web sites, which many agents have for their listings, she said, "are not a substitute for an open house because there's just no substitute for seeing the actual house."