Over the last two years there has been a noticable increase in negative commentary about open houses. I’ve heard “They’re a total waste of time” and “I stopped doing them years ago” but the one comment that has stuck with me the most was made by a Realtor at a recent conference. She stopped advertising open houses in newspapers and noticed the number of people attending the open house didn’t drop at all. I’m not sure if this is more a comment on the complete lack of value provided by print media or that having an open house is more about looking busy than effective marketing.

“The sellers expect it” is an oft repeated statement for doing lots of dumb things. Most commonly used to justify advertising a listing in the newspaper I have also heard it used as the reason for having an open house. The counter for both should be “But where are you looking for your next home?” The answer is almost always going to be “online”. End of argument.

To be effective, marketing has to engage; simply throwing something out there and hoping it sticks wastes time and money. It’s that need to engage that led to the creation of our own single property Website product. As the single richest source of information about one home online a PowerSite gives Realtors endless opportunities to inform, connect with and engage potential buyers.

I saw the following video, created by Randy Young, only yesterday and for me it does an excellent job of reinventing the open house invite. Randy absolutely deserves a tip of the hat for his evident creativity – there’s no question the video is more effective than a newspaper ad and I strongly suspect it will generate more foot traffic. But the question remains; is the open house dead?