I wrote this last year about open houses. Open houses at houses for sale were held throughout the pandemic. There was a brief period where real estate agents were strongly discouraged from having them.
As long as homeowners allowed them agents had them and people showed up. We know that open houses are not needed to sell a house but so that real estate agents can meet people and prospects.
There are homeowners and real estate agents who are still mostly staying home and waiting for their turn for a vaccination.
It probably has to do with age. Older people are more likely to die of COVID-19 and that probably makes them less likely to have an open house or go to one or put their house on the market.
This is what I wrote at this time last year:
Some local real estate companies said that open houses are safe because their agents got special training. Other real estate companies said no more open houses. My attitude about it is that if the people who work in the local restaurants do not get to go to work I shouldn’t disrespect them by having open houses. We really are all in this together.
Open houses are advertised in our MLS and the MLS notified us that:
“Effective immediately and until further notice, the scheduling of Open Houses in NorthstarMLS has been suspended. Also, any currently scheduled Open Houses in the NorthstarMLS system have been canceled and removed from the MLS. This action will remove the publication of Open House dates from IDX feeds and syndication to public-facing websites, as well.”
It all has to do with us keeping our distance from each other so that we don’t all get sick at once and flood hospitals with people who can’t breathe.
The good news is houses are still selling. At least for now. I think it is because of pent-up demand and low-interest rates. That demand will weaken as jobs are lost. Right now we don’t know how many people will be laid off.
It is hard for me to imagine having an open house before anyone was wearing masks in March of 2020 and before we fully understood that sanitizing doorknobs didn’t do much. Open houses were small COVID-19 spreader events and probably still are.
