“We’re out dreaming today,” Kevin Schultz, 33, said recently after looking at a house listed at $1.68 million on 13th Street in Park Slope. “But we’re not buying anything yet. And we’re not really going to buy that one, either.”
Mr. Schultz had attended an open house, one of the more bizarre rituals in real estate, whereby otherwise privacy-obsessed New Yorkers invite complete strangers into their homes to inspect their fixtures and moldings, their bedrooms and bathrooms, and — eek! — their closets, all in the hope that one of those wanderers will serendipitously, and with must-have-this-now immediacy, fall in love and write a check so big it makes their hand tremble.
For the seller, it’s usually a long shot: dozens may nibble, few will bite. None of this is news to brokers, who have long understood that many of the people they welcome into other peoples’ homes are just gawking, walking by or simply digesting a nice Sunday brunch.
“It’s a form of entertainment,” said Michele Kleier, the president of Gumley Haft Kleier and a regular on the reality TV show “Selling New York.” “It’s cheaper than Broadway.”
Indeed, some brokers say that open houses are basically client Kabuki — an antique pantomime meant to convince sellers that they’re working for their commission. (...)
Except when the system works. Take that $1.68 million house in Park Slope, a three-story charmer with a small roof deck, a front porch and a basement made for hobbits. It was sold just days after I saw it as a result of, you guessed it, an open house.
To be sure, for every broker who doubts the process, there’s another who hails it, saying the open house is a good way for buyers to educate themselves, a good way for brokers to practice their pitches and an even better way to get those two groups together in the same space at the same time.
“I think it’s one of the greatest things going on in real estate,” said Judi Lederer, a senior vice president of Town Residential. “I really do.” She added that finding time to schedule private viewings can be the most difficult part of being a broker.
So is the open house an authentic rite of passage to the front gate of homeownership? Or is it time-wasting window shopping? Are passers-through just daydreaming, or taking the first step in making that dream real?
To try to find out, I embarked on a tour of open houses over several weekends, entertaining flights of fancy in fine digs around the city, a voyeuristic jaunt that was part keeping up with the Joneses, part “Talented Mr. Ripley.” Along the way, I imagined living in elegant brownstones in Brooklyn, along cobblestone streets in TriBeCa and in 1-Percenter pads in Clinton. I’ve seen myself as a D.I.Y.-er in Hamilton Heights, a gentrifier in Harlem and a penthouser in Park Slope.
And what I discovered was the variety of strategies and techniques employed in the open-house game, which often combines the tactics of chess with the funny money of Monopoly.
by Jessie McKinley, NY Times | Read more:
Illustration: Ron Barrett
