Real estate agent Peggy Hill knew something was amiss as soon as she opened the front door.
“It was just before 5 on a dark afternoon. I was on an open house of a $400,000-plus home,” Hill recalls. “A huge man in dirty clothing came in the door, and I glanced out the front window and saw that he was driving an old beat-up car.”
Hill spent the next few minutes trying to keep up with the nervous-acting “buyer,” as he prowled through the empty house pawing through closets and drawers and at one point even opening the dining room silver chest.
“I was totally undone by his actions and the way he looked at me and kept glancing around the house,” said Hill, an 18-year real estate agent who sells homes in North Dallas. “He left, I locked up and vowed that I would never put myself in that situation again.”
That was four or five years ago, and since then Hill has given up weekend open houses in favor of other marketing measures.
“I tell my sellers, `Would you go to the door on Sunday afternoon and let strangers troop through your house?’ ” she said.
For decades, it’s been a bread-and-butter sales tool in residential real estate: holding weekend open houses to allow prospective buyers a chance to view new listings.
But as crime worries have grown in major cities, some sales agents are raising a red flag.
A rash of recent prescription drug thefts pilfered out of medicine cabinets or off bedsides while the agent’s back was turned has raised new concerns about open houses among Dallas-area agents.
Real estate agents are taking a harder look at security issues, advising their clients on how to make their homes safer for showings and what extra steps to take to guard their own well-being.
“When I am going to do an open house, I strongly recommend that buyers put away their valuables and prescription drugs,” said agent Mary Beth Harrison.
“I’ve sold over 20 properties from open houses. But I would like to see us move away from them,” she said. “It’s putting us all in a very precarious position.”
While open houses are one of the most common tricks of the trade in residential sales, nationwide surveys show they don’t generate as much business for agents as other marketing measures.
A recent poll of agents by the National Association of Realtors found that less than 10 percent of home sales were generated by open houses. The largest number of sales–almost 30 percent–come through referrals from past clients and friends.
Yard signs and newspaper advertisements account for the next largest numbers of buyers.
Other polls of top-producing sales agents rank open houses at the bottom of the most productive sales techniques.
But every weekend throughout Dallas and nationwide, thousands of agents plunk down their “Open” signs and camp out in empty living rooms and kitchens waiting for the doorbell to ring and hoping to make a sale.
“I hold two open houses every Sunday, and it hasn’t bothered me yet,” said Jennie Ling, one of the Dallas area’s top residential agents. “It’s a great way to meet prospective buyers, and sellers want to show off their property.
“I’ve heard about the potential for problems ever since I’ve been in real estate, but in 25 years, I’ve never had a problem,” Ling said.
Industry consultant Laurie Moore agrees.
“A good open house that is well promoted is going to get traffic,” Moore said. “You may not sell that particular house to somebody who walks in. But you may pick up a buyer prospect.”
Most sales agents say they will strongly resist any move to do away with open houses, but Realtors admit they are more aware of theft and are taking more precautions.
Last year’s assault of a Dallas area real estate agent, although not at an open house, caused increased awareness in the business.
“It’s something we have to communicate about on a regular basis,” said Jim Fite, chief executive of Century 21 Judge Fite Realtors. “We preach to our agents not to meet strangers at a property and not to get lax.”
“The world in which we live is not safe,” Fite said.
Some agents team up to work each other’s open houses. And in some situations, they won’t blink at asking one party of buyers to wait on the stoop while they are showing another group through the house.
“You have to stay in control of the situation,” Fite said. “You can’t have people wandering around unsupervised.”
Because of the rise in prescription thefts, a North Dallas Realtors group recently asked Dallas police representatives to speak at its weekly meeting. Such visits are more common, said Officer Jay Perry, who works in the police department’s north central office. The police now do regular safety seminars for agents.
“We encourage them to keep their guard up,” Perry said. “We tell them not to get cornered in a room, and if something makes you uncomfortable, excuse yourself and call the police.
“The real estate agents need to communicate with the people listing their homes,” he said. “If you are going to be showing your house, you don’t want a lot of loose valuables laying around.”
Still, for Peggy Hill, the most obvious industry solution is to do away with open houses.
“Only once in a blue moon will you get a buyer for the house you are showing,” Hill said.
“Unfortunately, the sellers have been taught this is the only way to sell your house.
“Our industry is slow to change,” she said. “Open houses will go away eventually it just takes time.”
