Open houses when buyers are comparing: a local supply check, a checkable fact sheet and a count
A how-to for the open house: read your own county's supply figures first, hold the event early, give buyers a sheet whose every number has a document behind it, and record what happened as counts.
Corrected: this is version 3. See the corrections page.
An open house has a different job when buyers have more listings to compare. It is no longer the first look; it is the side-by-side check. This note sets out the plan we would run, the fact sheet that goes with it, and the counts we would keep afterward.
Step one: read your own supply before you set a date
National inventory headlines describe a market nobody lists in. Before scheduling, pull two local readings and write the date you pulled them beside each.
The first is active listings in your price band from your MLS, by week, for the last eight weeks. The second is the Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey for your county. Read the survey's own definitions before you describe what a permit count means, and note whether a figure covers the county or only permit-issuing places.
As a worked pull, in the Census Bureau's 2025 annual county permits file, Travis County, Texas, reports 4,727 housing units authorized in one-unit buildings. [claim:b1] In that file, the row is the line that begins with the year and the county's codes, state 48 and county 453, and the one-unit units figure is the second number after the county name. [claim:b1]
Permits are an early signal, not next month's competition. Completions, your MLS inventory and your price band decide whether that pipeline matters to this seller this season.
Step two: hold it early, and say what would change the plan
Our practice is to hold one open house on the first weekend the listing is live, while it is still new in the searches buyers have saved. That is the desk's working rule, not a measured result.
A second event two weeks later is worth scheduling only if showing requests in the second week fall below the first week's. What would change our mind about the early event: if, across your next several listings, early open houses produce fewer second showings than the private showings booked the same week, drop the event and put the hours into private showings.
Step three: the fact sheet
Hand out a single page with the facts a comparing buyer needs, each with the document it came from:
- asking price, and the date it was set
- finished square footage, and whose measurement it is: appraisal, assessor or plan
- year built, from the assessor record
- annual property taxes, from the latest tax bill
- major work, with the invoice or permit date for each item
- association dues, if any, from the association's own statement
Every figure on the sheet should be one you can show the paper for. If a number cannot be traced, leave the line blank rather than estimate it.
Check your state licensing agency's rules on how a listing is advertised before you hand out a flyer. Check the agency's own news page before you change how a listing is shown or held back.
Step four: count, do not narrate
Keep a short record for every event, filled in the same evening:
- event date and hours
- sign-ins
- groups who walked through without signing in, marked as an estimate
- follow-up conversations within a week
- second showings booked
- offers received within thirty days, and whether the buyer attended
Do not report the open house as the reason for an offer unless the buyer said so in writing. Attendance and offers can rise together in a busy week without one causing the other. After several listings, the counts tell you whether the early event earns its weekend; a story about one good afternoon does not.
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