The open house has been one of the most common marketing home selling strategies in the United States. While you need to advertise you property in real estate and local publications, the open house attracts home buyers that may not even be looking for a home but see the ?open house? sign on a Sunday morning after getting a cup of coffee and decide to stop in.



But many people believe that open houses do not work and that they are a waste of time and money. And if open houses didn't work in the past, they may lack even more in effectiveness now as the Internet has allowed buyers to do basically all their home shopping without leaving the house.

The article, ?Open Houses--Do they Work in a Buyer's Market?? written by Teri Eckholm and posted on goarticles.com examines the pros and cons of open houses and discovers that a healthy balance may be the best recipe for selling your home.

Chances are that your real estate agent will either want to conduct no open houses or have a different one every week.

?Too many open houses can make a seller look desperate. But refusing to do open houses because they don't work might not be in a seller's best interest.?

?Homes do sell at open houses! Do you live in a high demand neighborhood with lots of drive by traffic? Will families be passing by on their way home from church or on their way to restaurants and shops? Is your home priced correctly for the neighborhood??

Open houses are often advertised in local forums but the majority of traffic you will generate will be people who happen to be driving by the property. If your home is secluded or at least not in an area where a few signs will be able to guide them to your front door, you may want to save your time and stick with Internet and publication advertising.

Even though the Internet has changed the way the housing market operates, shoppers doing most of their work online may actually be more inclined to visit open houses. This is the case when the buyer does just about all of his or her research without the use of a real estate agent and uses the open house to determine of the property is what he or she expected.

?If the only family time you have at home is Sunday afternoons, it is ok to say no to open houses. Some homeowners want scheduled showings with qualified buyers only. This limits access to your home and keeps ?looky-lous? to a minimum!?

If you want to try out open houses but are worried about the extra money it costs, you should only conduct an open house about once a month and hopefully you do not have to have too many of them.

?You should schedule the open house at least one week in advance. This allows time to place ads in the paper as well as on the Internet.?

The last ting unfortunately you need to be aware of if you decide to allow your real estate agent conduct the open houses for you is that many agents are not exactly using the open house to sell your home but rather to network with potential buyers. A buyer may say the price or dimensions are not desirable to which the agent could reply, ?Here's my card. I can show you a property??

You may want to try selling your home for at least a month before tacking open houses because they can be more stressful than profitable.