Greater Boston open houses are getting too crowded
Boston-area brokers are cutting back on or even ditching open house signs altogether in fear of drawing overflow crowds to what are already likely to be packed showings.
A packed open house apparently is no longer every real estate agent’s dream.
Some Boston-area brokers are cutting back on or even ditching open house signs altogether in fear of drawing overflow crowds to what are already likely to be packed showings.
In a market where there are lots of buyers and a chronic shortage of listings, full open houses have become more of the norm than the exception.
So the last thing some agents want is the hassle of curious passersby or nosey neighbors turning a bustling open house into a sardine can.
It can be especially difficult if the property for sale is a small city condo, noted veteran Coldwell Banker real estate agent Sara Rosenfeld, who has been selling real estate in Somerville since the early 1980s.
“It is amazing how much lots of bodies in a room make a room seem smaller,’’ Rosenfeld said. “I don’t want the extra bodies. I really don’t want them here unless they are buyers.’’
She didn’t put any sign up on her last open house.
“We all know that many people have a ‘hobby’ of going to open houses,’’ Rosenfeld wrote in an email.
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David Crowley, director of sales and marketing at Raveis Marketing Group in Boston, said he takes a similar approach when showing properties.
“I never put up open house signs. My main reason is security. Second is casual buyers (I call them serial open housers),’’ Crowley wrote in an email.
Rich Hornblower, an agent in the Back Bay office of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, still believes in putting out some open house signs, but has seen other brokers start to drop the practice.
“I have actually been noticing this a lot in the last month or so,’’ Hornblower noted in an email. “I saw it in the South End this past Sunday where I would say half of the 15 open houses I went to did not have signs out.’’
A few of the listings simply put small open house signs on their doors, he noted.
Still, more common are agents who are cutting down on the number of open house signs they use, instead of ditching they altogether.
Rather than plastering the neighborhood with signs, many are being more selective, putting just one in front of the house or condo to help buyers who are hunting for the address.
“One sign in front of the property is what I have been seeing more frequently instead of three to five signs scattered around the immediate neighborhood,’’ Rosenfeld wrote.
Still, some agents believe that when it comes to open house signs, the more the merrier.
“If you are going to do an open house, you want to see it flooded,’’ said Steve Leavey, a founding partner of Century 21 Commonwealth in Natick . “I don’t know why anyone would hold back on signs.’’
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